Pregnancy incontinence is a term for bladder leakage, which happens because of pregnancy hormones, added pressure on your bladder, and pelvic floor muscles getting a bit weaker. It’s quite common, affecting around 40% of women during pregnancy.1 But it doesn’t always stop after childbirth. Many new moms continue to experience bladder control issues, known as postpartum urinary incontinence.
What Are the Types of Pregnancy Incontinence?
Pregnancy incontinence is a term for bladder leakage, which happens because of pregnancy hormones, added pressure on your bladder, and pelvic floor muscles getting a bit weaker. It’s quite common, affecting around 40% of women during pregnancy.1 But it doesn’t always stop after childbirth. Many new moms continue to experience bladder control issues, known as postpartum urinary incontinence.
What Are the Types of Pregnancy Incontinence?
Let’s break it down. There are a couple of main types that can pop up during pregnancy and after baby arrives:
- Stress incontinence: Ever had a little leak when you cough, sneeze, laugh, or lift something heavy?1 That’s stress incontinence.
- Urge incontinence: That sudden, strong urge to pee right away? That’s urge incontinence.1
- Mixed incontinence: Sometimes, you might experience a bit of both. Yep, that’s called mixed incontinence.
What Causes Pregnancy Incontinence?
There are many ways that pregnancy affects the bladder, which can lead to frequent urination and constant bathroom trips during pregnancy or leaks. Here are some of the reasons why it happens:
1. Your body produces more pee
Throughout pregnancy, your blood volume increases, causing the kidneys to produce more urine, so you’ll need to go to the bathroom more frequently.
2. Your bladder is getting squeezed
As your uterus expands with your growing baby, there’s extra pressure on your bladder. The bigger your baby gets, the more your bladder gets squeezed, which is why you might feel like you live in the bathroom during your third trimester.
3. Your hormones are softening everything
The body’s reproductive hormones loosen and relax your muscles, joints and ligaments during pregnancy to help your body stretch and prepare for delivering a baby. These hormones also weaken the muscles that control urine flow, so leaks become more common.
Throw in constipation (a common symptom that we can experience during pregnancy and after birth) and there’s even more pressure on your pelvic floor and bladder. This weakens the support around your urinary tract, which can mean you experience light leaks or stress urinary incontinence, especially when you laugh, cough or sneeze.
4. You’re lying down at night
When you finally lie down to rest after carrying around a baby all day, any fluid retention in your legs and feet finds its way back into your bloodstream. This increases the production of urine, which could explain why you keep waking up at 3 a.m. to pee.
How Long Does Pregnancy & Postpartum Incontinence Last?
Great question! The good news is that pregnancy incontinence is usually temporary. For some women, bladder control bounces back within a few weeks. For others, those unexpected leaks can hang around for months or even longer. But in most cases, things return to normal a few months after pregnancy.1
Recovery depends on factors like how strong your pelvic floor is, whether you had a vaginal or C-section delivery, pregnancy weight gain, and any pre-existing bladder quirks.
Most women see improvement with time (and a little pelvic floor TLC). But if you're still dealing with the problem 6 weeks or more postpartum, or if things seem to be getting worse, it’s worth checking in with a healthcare provider.1 There’s no need to suffer in silence when there’s help available.
How Long Does Pregnancy & Postpartum Incontinence Last?
Great question! The good news is that pregnancy incontinence is usually temporary. For some women, bladder control bounces back within a few weeks. For others, those unexpected leaks can hang around for months or even longer. But in most cases, things return to normal a few months after pregnancy.1
Recovery depends on factors like how strong your pelvic floor is, whether you had a vaginal or C-section delivery, pregnancy weight gain, and any pre-existing bladder quirks.
Most women see improvement with time (and a little pelvic floor TLC). But if you're still dealing with the problem 6 weeks or more postpartum, or if things seem to be getting worse, it’s worth checking in with a healthcare provider.1 There’s no need to suffer in silence when there’s help available.