No more Kegels: I found a fix for post-birth incontinence why don't more women know about it?

"Some of my earliest memories feature my mother's leotard-encased body bouncing to Jane Fonda with abandon. A similar carefree fluidity prevailed a decade later, as her feet struck hard-packed sand on a shorebreak jog. Twelve-year-old me panted alongside, so desperate to be made in her image that I tolerated heated cheeks and shaking quads. Their trembling barely subsided during the one stop we made, for her to wade into the waves and pee."

"She gave up and switched to hiking. I should have done more Kegels, she quipped. And that's how I learned before I'd even taken the SAT about the repetitive undercarriage squeezing recommended for millions of Americans. I tried everything to fix my incontinence. Here's what worked I recently learned something else: women don't have to live like this. Arnold Kegel was born in Iowa in 1894 and by the mid-20th century, he was a professor of gynecology in southern California."

Early memories feature a mother exercising to Jane Fonda and jogging on hard-packed sand while a child copied her, enduring heated cheeks and shaking quads. The mother sometimes stopped to urinate in the waves and later began hiking to manage worsening leakage. Kegel exercises became a household reference, taught as repetitive pelvic-floor squeezes. Pelvic floor muscles weaken from surgery, pregnancy, vaginal delivery, smoking, and ageing. Arnold Kegel developed a vaginal manometer and promoted exercises to reduce stress urinary incontinence triggered by exertion. After five pregnancies and three deliveries, coughing or exertion caused stress urinary leakage, prompting many attempts at treatment.

Read at www.theguardian.com