Deeksha Singh*

OBGYN Therapist, Lactation and Birth Counselor, PFM Licensed Educator and Therapist, Pre/Postnatal Specialist (Bellies Inc), Core Confidence Specialist (Bellies Inc), Owner and Founder of Hormonal Wings, Member of PCOS Society of India and AWID, India

*Corresponding Author: Deeksha Singh, OBGYN Therapist, Lactation and Birth Counselor, PFM Licensed Educator and Therapist, Pre/Postnatal Specialist (Bellies Inc), Core Confidence Specialist (Bellies Inc), Owner and Founder of Hormonal Wings, Member of PCOS Society of India and AWID, India.

Received: July 05, 2022; Published: August 01, 2022

Abstract

I hear it all the time, ‘my doctor, friend, mom, aunt told me to just do more Kegels’. I guess because it’s the only exercise most people are aware of for their pelvic floor, they just do it for everything and if it doesn’t work, they try more of them. I can’t tell you how many women I treat that are doing 100’s of Kegels per day and are no better! It’s crazy to me.

Arnold Level, MD, never designed his eponymous pelvic floor exercises as a one-way street; in fact he instructed his patient to release their pelvic floor muscles as well as they squeeze them. The contraction should be a gentle lift- not a vice grips. And also the exercise should engage more than just a urethra muscle. So the advice many doctors give to their patient like stopping and then restarting the flow of urine- is incorrect. I agreed on appoint that these exercises can benefit women, especially those who have hypotonic or loose muscles and stress incontinence.

Keywords: Kegels; Incontinence; Women; Pelvic Floor Muscles; Pelvic Floor Rehab; Physiotherapy

References

1. KEGEL AH. “Progressive resistance exercise in the functional restoration of the perineal muscles”. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology2 (1948): 238-248.
2. Ashton-Miller JA and DeLancey JO. “Functional anatomy of the female pelvic floor”. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1101 (2007): 266-296.
3. Zanetti MR., et al. “Impact of supervised physiotherapeutic pelvic floor exercises for treating female stress urinary incontinence”. Sao Paulo Medical Journal5 (2007): 265-269.
4. McLennan MT., et al. “Patients' knowledge of potential pelvic floor changes associated with pregnancy and delivery”. International Urogynecology Journal and Pelvic Floor Dysfunction 1 (2006): 22-26.
5. Kahyaoglu Sut H and Balkanli Kaplan P. “Effect of pelvic floor muscle exercise on pelvic floor muscle activity and voiding functions during pregnancy and the postpartum period”. Neurourology and Urodynamics3 (2016): 417-422.
6. Bump RC., et al. “Assessment of Kegel pelvic muscle exercise performance after brief verbal instruction”. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 2 (1991): 322-327; discussion 327-329.
7. Dumoulin C., et al. “Pelvic floor muscle training versus no treatment, or inactive control treatments, for urinary incontinence in women”. Cochrane Database System Review 10 (2018): CD005654.

Citation

Citation: Deeksha Singh. “To Kegel or Not to Kegel?". Acta Scientific Women's Health 4.9 (2022): 01-03.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2022 Deeksha Singh. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.