Pelvic Floor Exercises Help Prevent Prolapse

An international trial found that pelvic floor exercises help prevent prolapse symptoms in women.

Pelvic organ prolapse occurs when the bladder, womb or bowel drops from its normal position. Symptoms include feelings of something “coming down,” and urinary and bowel issues. The condition is common — it affects up to 30 percent of women — and is linked to childbirth and increasing age.

The trial, which was published in The Lancet, involved more than 400 women from the United Kingdom and New Zealand, and attempted to identify the effectiveness of pelvic floor muscle training on the development of prolapse symptoms.

The study compared women who were provided with one-to-one pelvic floor muscle training (five physiotherapy appointments over 16 weeks, including tailored lifestyle advice) plus Pilates-based pelvic floor muscle training classes and a DVD for guided home exercise, with the other half of the group, who received only a prolapse lifestyle advice leaflet.

The study found the intervention led to fewer prolapse symptoms. Within two years, more than twice the number of women (14.4 percent compared to 6 percent) who did not have the pelvic floor muscle training reported having had prolapse treatment, which includes surgery, physiotherapy, pessaries (devices similar to a diaphragm that are used to support the vagina) or consultation with their physician.

The researchers suggested that women be encouraged to undertake pelvic floor muscle training even before they have bothersome symptoms.

“It has clear benefits with very few side effects, which is different from other interventions — surgery and drugs — used in medicine,” said co-author Don Wilson, M.D.

“It has been shown to be an effective treatment for urinary incontinence and some forms of symptomatic prolapse, and now we have shown that these exercises can help prevent prolapse symptoms from developing in the future,” he said.

“I currently recommend all my patients to carry out regular pelvic floor muscle training.”

In the U.S., women are often encouraged to strengthen their pelvic muscles by doing exercises referred to as Kegels, which contract and relax pelvic floor muscles.

According to the Mayo Clinic, you can do the exercises discreetly at just about any time, and if you do them regularly, you can expect results within a few weeks to a few months.