Urinary Incontinence in Pregnancy and after Childbirth

Abstract

Introduction: The development of incontinence depends on many factors and more often affects women who have already given birth. It is related to the growth of the fetus and the pressure of the head and fetus on the bladder and pelvic floor muscles. Hormonal influences also play an important role, as they relax the muscles and also affect the pelvic ligament. Due to this fact, in the research, we investigated urinary incontinence in a selected research sample and determined the degree of connection between incontinence of the respondents and factors such as pregnancy, number of births and the method of delivery. Methods: Using Microsoft Excel, we performed a mathematical-statistical evaluation of the data, which we expressed as a percentage in the attached graphic and tabular processing. We verified the hypotheses with the correlation coefficient, the Spearman coefficient and the non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test. We made the decision about the existence of statistical significance based on the calculated p value and the significance level of 0.05.                                                      Results: By processing the results, we pointed out the degree of connection of urinary incontinence with several factors, namely pregnancy, the method of delivery and the number of births. For stress and overflow incontinence, the differences between the groups are very small. In urge incontinence, the differences are more pronounced between means and the mean ranks. However, even here, significant difference between the groups was not confirmed. Also, the connection between the number of births and urinary incontinence was not confirmed. However, we found a connection between the method of delivery and overflow and urge incontinence. Conclusion: Urinary incontinence during pregnancy and after childbirth is a significant burden for a woman. It covers the issues of the women it concerns in all spheres of life. Urinary incontinence is a certain burden for the whole society, not only for the affected woman. Therefore, one cannot forget exact drug therapy and other conservative treatment procedures, including the often underappreciated special therapeutic gymnastics – pelvic floor strengthening.