Adapted from BMJ 7 September 2024
Although pelvic floor yoga has been advised after childbirth and pelvic surgery for decades, it has never had a firm evidence base.
In California, a randomised trial was conducted with 240 women aged between 45 and 90. All reported urge, stress or mixed incontinence.
One group were given 12 weeks of twice weekly group instruction of pelvic floor Hatha yoga and the other group was given the same time and frequency of general muscle stretching and strengthening exercises. The women all had to keep three day diaries of their voiding habits.
At the start the mean frequency of unwanted voiding occurred 3.4 times a day. This fell to 1.1 episodes with pelvic yoga and 1.5 with general physical conditioning.
There were similar improvements whether the woman had stress or urge incontinence.
My comment: I’ve been doing a wide variety of exercise almost daily for the last 35 years, including pelvic floor exercises. Although pelvic floor exercises are taught to almost every pregnant woman, as a GP, nearly all women I met who had incontinence said they had rarely practised the exercises or had given them up after a few months. Due to my exposure to incontinent women I have been really good at keeping my pelvic floor strong. Whatever your age, but particularly if you have been pregnant or have hit the menopausal years, it seems a good idea to make pelvic floor exercises a daily habit.
Diabetes Diet 