Urinary Incontinence in Women: How Pelvic Physiotherapy Can Help
Your kids want you to jump on the trampoline with them, but the thought of it makes you break out in a sweat. You want to try that new exercise class downtown, but you’re worried your pads won’t hold up and you’re running low on black leggings. Or maybe you’ve mentally mapped every bathroom between your home and your workplace in Galt because it’s rare that you make the trip without at least one unplanned stop.
If any of this sounds familiar, just know: you are not alone.
Urinary incontinence in women is incredibly common, affecting almost 30% of Canadian women across their lifespan. More importantly, it is not something you simply have to accept. Women are often misled into believing that leaking during pregnancy or in the postpartum period is just part of becoming a mother. It gets normalized again as women move through perimenopause and menopause. This does a real disservice to women who are quietly buying endless pads, limiting their physical activity, and pulling back from social life — all because of urinary leakage that is actually very treatable.
Pelvic floor physiotherapy is one of the most effective first-line treatments for urinary incontinence in women — at every stage of life. But before we can address it, we need to understand what type of incontinence you have.
The Three Types of Urinary Incontinence
1. Stress Urinary Incontinence (SUI)
The trigger: Coughing, sneezing, laughing, jumping, running, or lifting something heavy — like a toddler or a barbell.
What’s happening: Your pelvic floor muscles aren’t generating enough pressure to hold back urine when something else (a sneeze, a jump) puts sudden pressure on your bladder. This can be caused by structural changes around the urethra (often from vaginal birth), reduced pelvic floor muscle strength, or poor timing of muscle contraction.
2. Urge Urinary Incontinence (UUI)
The trigger: A sudden, intense urge to urinate that’s very difficult to delay. Common triggers include hearing running water, arriving home and putting your key in the door, or even just thinking about using the bathroom.
What’s happening: The bladder muscle (called the detrusor) contracts before the bladder is actually full, or its contraction becomes stronger than your pelvic floor can counter. This can involve an overactive bladder muscle, an altered brain-bladder communication pathway, or both.
3. Mixed Urinary Incontinence (MUI)
As the name suggests, mixed incontinence involves elements of both stress and urge. It’s more common than many people realize. Treatment needs to balance pelvic floor strengthening (for the stress component) with bladder retraining and nervous system calming (for the urge component). A pelvic physiotherapist can help you sort out which is which.
How Pelvic Floor Physiotherapy Treats Urinary Incontinence
Pelvic physiotherapy is recognized as a first-line treatment for urinary incontinence in women. Unfortunately, the widespread myth that all leakage comes from a weak pelvic floor has left many women stuck doing Kegel exercises that aren’t actually addressing the root cause of their symptoms — or doing them incorrectly altogether.
A pelvic physiotherapist takes a thorough, individualized approach. At your first appointment, we’ll talk through your symptoms, your history, your lifestyle, and your goals. We look at the whole picture: your bathroom habits, your fluid intake, your movement patterns, and the way your nervous system is responding to bladder signals.
Treatment might include:
• Pelvic floor muscle training (which is sometimes about strengthening, and sometimes about learning to relax)
• Bladder retraining strategies to gradually extend the time between bathroom visits
• Nervous system regulation techniques to calm an overactive bladder
• Lifestyle and movement modifications tailored to your daily routine
• Manual therapy to address muscle tension or scar tissue from birth or surgery
Ready to Stop Managing and Start Recovering?
You don’t have to keep buying pads, skipping workouts, or planning your life around your bladder. Urinary incontinence is common, but it is not something you have to live with.
If you’re in Cambridge or the surrounding area and you’re ready to get to the bottom of your leakage, I’d love to help. Book your first appointment today — or if you’re not sure where to start, a free 15-minute discovery call is a great first step.
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Serving women in Cambridge, Kitchener-Waterloo, Guelph and surrounding communities.
