Solutions

Strengthen your pelvic floor
It’s common for the muscles in your pelvic floor to get a bit beaten up during the pregnancy and delivery.  If you have some type of urinary incontinence, restoring the strength and health of your pelvic floor muscles is crucial.  Try to find a pelvic floor physiotherapist who can assess your strength and get you started on a strength training program.  Definitely start doing Kegel exercises.

Reduce caffeine
Sorry ladies, as much as we love our caffeine, and heck, even need it to get through the long days of diapers, crying kids, work, visiting relatives …! here’s the deal: caffeine can irritate the bladder and can make your incontinence worse.  So, try your best to reduce caffeine intake.

Lose weight
Oh great, more pressure to lose those pregnancy pounds!  It’s sad, but true that carrying a lot of extra weight, like 50 lbs, puts more pressure on your pelvic floor and bladder.  If you can take just a little bit off, you may find this will help with your incontinence.

Bladder training
If you have urge incontinence, bladder training can be quite helpful.  It’s kind of like toilet training your bladder; you’re scheduling your bladder to pee at certain times.  Talk to your doctor about how to do this or check out some helpful websites.

Medication
There are various medications available to reduce or prevent urgency incontinence or mixed incontinence.  You’ll need to talk to your doctor to see what she/he would recommend.

Surgery is a highly successful solution for stress incontinence
There are various minimally invasive procedures that can correct stress incontinence.  The most common is the Burch procedure or tension-free sling.  Otherwise known as a bladder lift, these procedures essentially pull the bladder back into a normal position. Best of all, the success rates for these procedures are over 80%.  Check out descriptions of the various surgical procedures.