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Bladder Health

Pregnancy and urinary incontinence

During pregnancy and following childbirth, there are a number of factors that often cause women to experience bladder control problems and urine leaks. While you're pregnant, the extra weight of your baby resting on your bladder can cause you to urinate more frequently (called frequency). Sometimes, the pressure your baby puts on your bladder can also cause you to leak urine when you sneeze, cough, laugh, lift a heavy object or perform other physical activities. Less commonly, some pregnant women and new mothers experience an unusually urgent need to urinate (called urgency).

Click here to learn more about routine urine tests in pregnancy.

If you're pregnant and having bladder control problems, discuss this with your health care provider. It's common for pregnant women to experience some loss of bladder control – in fact, up to half of all women will have some problems with bladder control while pregnant. In most cases, women who experience this will notice that bladder control problems get worse as their pregnancy progresses. In the vast majority of cases, these problems will improve or disappear soon after delivery. Women who’ve had difficulty with bladder control during previous pregnancies are more likely than first-time mothers to experience bladder control problems during pregnancy and post-partum. If you do experience a bladder control problem that lasts for more than six weeks after childbirth, talk to your health care provider to figure out the cause and the best way to address the problem.

Other factors that can affect bladder health during and after pregnancy include:

Vaginal delivery, especially if long or difficult, which can weaken and stretch your pelvic floor muscles.
Shifting of the position of your bladder or urethra, making it more difficult to contain the flow of urine.
Episiotomy during childbirth (a cut in the surrounding tissue called the vulva that creates more room for the baby during delivery) which can weaken your pelvic floor muscles.
Pregnancy and childbirth can also damage the nerves that control your bladder, causing it to release urine at inconvenient times.
The repeated stress and stretching of multiple pregnancies can further reduce the strength of pelvic floor muscles and make it more difficult to control leaks.

Exercises that strengthen your pelvic floor muscles can help during pregnancy and childbirth. If you're considering getting pregnant, talk to your doctor about the possibility of strengthening your pelvic floor muscles ahead of time to help prevent problems.