Kegel Exercises For Pregnant Women To Strengthen The Pelvic Floor Muscles!

Kegel exercises can also be called as pelvic floor exercises.

These exercises help in strengthening the muscles that support your uterus, rectum, bowels, bladder and also help in strengthening your vaginal muscles.

Kegel exercises during pregnancy help in developing the ability to relax and control the muscles while preparing for labor and delivery.

Also, these exercises are recommended during the postpartum period in order to promote the healing of perennial tissues and control increased urination.

Benefits of kegel exercises:

• Mostly pregnant women are encouraged to do kegel exercises as they make pelvic floor muscles stronger and help during childbirth, especially pushing makes easier.
• Kegel exercises lesses your chance of tears happening during labor.
• During the postpartum period, kegel exercises can help in perennial healing of episiotomy wounds and also in preventing postpartum incontinence and toning your stretched vaginal muscles so that it makes sex better.
• Kegel exercises prevent incontinence from occurring in the later life.
• They create your orgasm healthier.
• They decrease the chance of hemorrhoids.
• They improve the vaginal sensation.
• Help in regaining bladder control and decrease your urinary problems.
• Women who have weak pelvic floor muscles such as vaginal delivery, obesity, menopause, chronic coughing and pelvic surgery can gain a lot from kegel exercises.

The best thing about kegel exercises is you can do them at any where and no one will recognize you are doing them.

Doing kegel exercises:

• In order to find the correct muscle, stop to practice the flow of urine when you are urinating.
• Put your finger inside the vagina while lying on the floor. Try to squeeze when you are trying to stop urination. Feeling tightness around your finger makes you to find the pelvic muscle.
• Contraction of your pelvic muscles at least for 10 seconds and then relaxing and repeating it for 10-20 times help in strengthening the muscle.
• Breathe normally while you are doing these exercises and practice this for 3 times a day.
• Don’t move your abdominal muscles, legs or buttocks while you are doing the exercises.

Right time to do the kegel exercises:

• When you are waiting for your doctor in a waiting room
• When you are stopped at the signal
• When you are in the shower
• While watching the TV
• While sitting in front of the computer at your work place

Kegel Exercises For Women

A kegel is the name of a pelvic floor exercise, named after Dr. Kegel who discovered the exercise. These muscles are attached to the pelvic bone and act like a hammock, holding in your pelvic organs. To isolate these muscles try stopping and starting the flow of urine. Involuntary leakage of urine (urinary incontinence) is the bane of many of us who've reached our 40's — and often affects younger women, too. Decreasing levels of estrogen can weaken the muscles that have control over the urethra (the tube carrying urine from the bladder to the outside of the body). Other factors, such as weight gain as we get older, can make incontinence worse.

What Are Kegel Exercises for Women?
Kegel, or pelvic floor muscle exercises are done to strengthen the muscles which support the urethra, bladder, uterus and rectum.

Why Do Kegel Exercises?
Often the pelvic floor muscles are weak which contributes to problems with losing urine. Doing the exercises correctly and regularly with resistance can strengthen the muscles. Stronger muscles lead to little or no urine loss for many women.

How Do I Do Them?
Over one-third of women start out squeezing the wrong muscles. Therefore, it is helpful to work with a doctor or nurse who can teach you the correct technique. You can also check yourself by placing a finger in your vagina and squeezing around it. When you feel pressure around your finger, you are using the correct muscle. Try to keep everything relaxed except the muscles right around the vagina. At the same time, do not bear down or squeeze your thigh, back or abdominal muscles. Breathe slowly and deeply. At first you can do the exercises with your knees together (lying or sitting).

How Often Should I Do The Exercises?
Be sure you are doing them correctly before you start. We recommend doing the exercises for five minutes twice a day. You should squeeze the muscle for a count of four and relax for a count of four. At first, you may not be able to do the exercises for a whole five minutes or hold the squeeze for a count of four. With practice it will become easier as the muscles get stronger.

When Should I Expect Improvement In My Symptoms?
It takes from six to twelve weeks for most women to notice a change in urine loss. Remember, if you do the exercises with resistance regularly you could see results sooner and prevent stress incontinence.

How Should I Do The Exercises?
If you read that these exercises can be done anywhere, anytime - that is not necessarily true. We have studied different ways of doing the exercises to see what works best to decrease urine loss. What we found worked best was five minute sessions done twice a day. Many women report that five minutes before they get up in the morning and five minutes before they sleep is a helpful routine.

Is There Anything I Should Change Once The Exercises Become Easy?
Once the exercises become easy, you can further strengthen the muscles by squeezing to a count of eight and relaxing to a count of eight with our recommended resistance exerciser. Repeat this for five minutes two times a day. It will also work the muscle more to do the exercises with your knees apart.

How Long Do I Have To Do The Exercises?
Once you have attained your goal, you can do the exercises for five minutes three times a week. If you start having problems again with urine loss, you may need to go back to five minutes two times a day.