Urinary symptoms and the pelvic floor muscle function after delivery

PURPOSE: to evaluate the prevalence of urinary symptoms and association between pelvic floor muscle function and urinary symptoms in primiparous women 60 days after vaginal delivery with episiotomy and cesarean section after labor. METHODS: a cross-sectional analysis was conducted on women from an out patient clinic in Sao Paulo state, Brazil, 60 days after delivery. Pelvic floor muscle function was assessed by surface electromyography (basal tone, maximal voluntary contraction and mean sustained contraction) and by a manual muscle test (grades 0-5). In an interview, the urinary symptoms were identified and women with difficulty to understand, with motor/neurological impairment, pelvic surgery, diabetes, restriction for vaginal palpation and practicing exercises forpelvic floor muscles were excluded. The.2 and Fisher Exact test were used to compare proportions and the Mann-Whitney test was used to analyze mean differences. RESULTS: 46 primiparous were assessed on average 63.7 days postpartum. The most prevalent symptoms were nocturia (19.6%), urgency (13%) and increased daytime urinary frequency (8.7%). Obese and overweight women had 4.6 times more of these symptoms (PR=4.6 [95% CI; 1.2-18.6; p value=0.0194]). Stress urinary incontinence was the most prevalent incontinence (6.5%). The mean values found for the basic tone, maximal voluntary contraction and sustained contraction were: 3 mu V, 14.6 mu V and 10.3 mu V. Most of the women (56.5%) had grade 3 muscular strength. There was no association between urinary symptoms and pelvic floor muscle function. CONCLUSION: the prevalence of urinary symptoms was low 60 days postpartum and there was no association between pelvic floor muscle function and urinary symptoms.