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Good bladder control sounds simple. Just hold on until you get to the bathroom.
It sounds simple. But good bladder control takes teamwork from many organs,
muscles, and nerves in your body.
Most of your bladder control system lies inside the pelvis. Stand with your
hands on your hips. The bones under your hands are the pelvic bones. Your pelvis
is shaped like a big bowl. Your hands lie on the rim of the bowl. The bottom
of the bowl, between your legs, is muscle.
Four important body systems work inside the pelvic bowl:
The bladder control system.
The bladder is a muscle shaped like a balloon. It holds urine.
The urethra (yoo-REE-thrah) is a tube from the bladder that drains urine out of the body.
Two sphincter (SFINK-tur) muscles help the urethra open and close.
The female system.
The womb, or uterus(YOO-ter-us), is an organ where your monthly
periods come from and where unborn babies develop.
The vagina (vuh-JY-nuh) is a canal where blood from your periods
leaves the body and where babies come out.
The digestive system.
The rectum (REK-tum) is an area where bowel movements go from
the intestine.
The anus (AY-nus) is the opening where bowel movements leave your
body.
The nervous system.
Nerves send messages from your brain to your bladder and from
your bladder to your brain.
Muscles open and close to release or to hold urine.
Three sets of muscles control urine. One set is the bladder muscle itself. The second set is sphincter muscles that open and close the urethra. The third set is the muscles at the bottom of the pelvic bowl. They are called the pelvic floor muscles. They support the uterus, rectum, and bladder.
Sometimes pelvic muscles get stretched and weak. When this happens, organs in the pelvic bowl sag. Then women have trouble holding their urine. Luckily, exercising the pelvic muscles can often make them strong again.
Sometimes nerves are damaged by childbirth or other events. The damaged nerves signal the bladder muscles to squeeze urine out at the wrong times. Medical treatment can help women with this problem.
Bladder control means you urinate only when you want to. For good bladder control, all parts of your system must work together:
National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse, 3 Information Way, Bethesda, MD 20892-3580
Email: nkudic@info.niddk.nih.gov
The National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse (NKUDIC) is a service of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). The NIDDK is part of the National Institutes of Health under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Established in 1987, the clearinghouse provides information about diseases of the kidneys and urologic system to people with kidney and urologic disorders and to their families, health care professionals, and the public. NKUDIC answers inquiries, develops and distributes publications, and works closely with professional and patient organizations and Government agencies to coordinate resources about kidney and urologic diseases. Publications produced by the clearinghouse are carefully reviewed by both NIDDK scientists and outside experts. This e-text is not copyrighted. The clearinghouse encourages users of this e-pub to duplicate and distribute as many copies as desired.
NIH Publication No. 02-4187 April 2002
Let's Talk about Bladder Control for Women is a public health awareness campaign
conducted by the National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse
(NKUDIC), an information dissemination service of the National Institute of
Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), National Institutes of Health.
1-800-891-5388
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