Incontinence After Childbirth

Making Healthy, Informed Choices During Delivery and Beyond

By Kelly Burgess

It's something nearly every woman is aware of: Women who deliver children vaginally run the risk of urinary incontinence as they age. They find their fears confirmed when they cough and leak, run and leak or pick up something heavy and leak.

So why is the topic making news now? Because a new study has proved definitively that vaginal delivery, particularly difficult vaginal delivery, has a definite effect on a woman's long-term pelvic health. The study's author, Dr. Roger Goldberg, MD, MPH, director of urogynecology research at the Evanston Continence Center of Evanston Northwestern Healthcare and clinical instructor of obstetrics & gynecology, Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, says this proof can help bring an issue to the forefront that women and their doctors can be reluctant to face.

Arlene Frommer, a mother of three from Highland Park, Ill., used to joke with her tennis buddies about "leaking." She says there are few women of her acquaintance who don't have some level of incontinence. They merely thought it was an inevitable part of aging. Eventually it got to the point where she sought treatment, only to discover that solving her incontinence issue consisted of a simple, 20-minute procedure.

"If I had known it was that easy, I would have had it done years ago," says Frommer. "I didn't even know specialists existed for this kind of problem."

"Incontinence after childbirth is an area of women's health that has been glossed over in the medical community," says Dr. Goldberg. "There are literally millions of women who suffer from incontinence – up to 50 percent by age 40. The unfair characterization has been made that incontinence is inevitable. Not only can it be treated, [but] this study may get us talking about preventing it as well."

Educating women about the issue of female incontinence is not a new cause for Dr. Goldberg. Some years ago, after delivering a successful series of lectures on "Childbirth and the Pelvic Floor," he was basking in the glow of the positive response he'd received from the female attendees when he realized that all women should have access to the information he'd been imparting. He went on to write Ever Since I Had My Baby

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• Just in Case: Making a Plan for Cesarean Birth
• Talk about it!