May Yoga be the Answer to Pelvic Floor Disorders?

Pelvic floor disorders (PFD) which include urinary incontinence (UI), pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and bowel dysfunction (difficult defecation and anal incontinence (AI)) are common among adult women. But less than 15% of these women seek medical treatment for their symptoms.

These disorders impact quality of life for many women. A true prevalence of these disorders is difficult to capture. Differences in definition, both in clinical practice and in the literature create variability in estimates of prevalence and incidence.

Regardless of how prevalence is determined, studies have consistently demonstrated risk factors for PFD include increasing age (menopausal status), prior hysterectomy, vaginal birth, obesity, smoking, and inheritance of a connective tissue disorder.

Compared with spontaneous vaginal delivery, cesarean delivery was significantly associated with a lower hazard of stress urinary incontinence (SUI), overactive bladder (OAB), and POP while an operative vaginal delivery was significantly associated with a higher hazard of AI and POP.

What’s the treatment for these conditions?

The resolutive treatment depends on the disorder, but almost all surgery is needed. 

For those who do seek medical help, many patients have trouble complying with initial lifestyle-based recommendations, such as refraining from drinking caffeinated and carbonated beverages.

Medication as well as physical therapy are routes doctors can order before considering surgery, but some patients find clinical-based interventions to be costly.

Hari Tunuguntla, MD, associate professor of urologic surgery at Rutgers University’s Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, in New Brunswick, New Jersey and his team set out to study the efficacy of the mobile app Yoga of Immortals, which offers a holistic form of yoga that includes postures, breathing exercises, sound therapy, and meditation.

They emailed surveys to 420 people between ages 18 and 74 years in 23 countries who reported having any type of urinary incontinence, regardless of severity. The participants, most of whom were women, used the yoga app for 30 minutes a day for 8 weeks.

More than three quarters of participants reported that the frequency and severity of their incontinence improved after 8 weeks of practice compared with when they started, without having to visit their healthcare provider. Most participants also said that they felt “very much better” after 8 weeks compared with when they began the yoga regimen

One of the benefits of yoga is building strength and flexibility slowly and simultaneously. Another benefit of slower forms of yoga is that they can help participants become more aware of the structures of their pelvic floor.

As we see, the results of doing yoga with an established frequency has a lot of benefits for all those women that have Pelvic Floor disorders, especially with Urinary incontinence. Also the results depend on the willingness of the patient, and the commitment to make a dairy habit.

SOURCE:

Hari Siva Gurunadha, Rao Tununguntla, Renuka Tununguntla, Himashu Kathuria, Nidhiben Chaudhar, Sadhna Verma, Ishan Shivanand (June 30 , 2022). App-Based Yoga of Immortals: A Novel, Easy-to-use Intervention in the Management of Urinary Incontinence. Urloogy. Retrieved from : https://www.goldjournal.net/article/S0090-4295(22)00511-8/fulltext 

Kimberly A. Kenne, Linder Wendt & J. Brooks Jackson (June 14 ,2022). Prevalence of pelvic floor disorders in adult women being seen in a primary care setting and associated risk factors. Nature. Retrieved from : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-13501-w 

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Photo by Avrielle Suleirman on Unsplash