Menopause & Pelvic Floor Health: Understanding the Impact

Menopause is one of the significant transformative periods in a woman's life, wherein the pelvic floor muscles weaken. This could result in issues like pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence. These changes happen due to the shift of hormones in women, mainly when their bodies produce less oestrogen. These changes can be challenging, but there are ways to assist you in managing the symptoms better. Treatments such as a neuroplasticity-based approach and EMG biofeedback for pelvic floor dysfunction can help make your muscles stronger and keep your pelvic health in good shape during menopause. This article gives you valuable information about what you can do about this.

How Menopause Affects Your Pelvic Health

Menopause is the time after you have not had menstruation for a whole year. The change is an all-natural phenomenon for most women between 45 and 55 years. During menopause, a woman’s body produces lesser amounts of vital hormones—oestrogen and progesterone.

These hormone changes affect many aspects of health, especially the pelvic floor: a group of muscles, tissues, and ligaments forming a support base in your pelvis. This natural support system has an important job—it keeps your bladder, uterus, and bowel perfectly positioned and working smoothly. Without it working properly, you might run into issues like urinary and bowel control as well as sexual health.

These supporting muscles start losing strength and cannot function properly when hormone levels change. This weakening of pelvic muscles during menopause and pelvic floor health challenges are common but do not wait to take action. Addressing these changes early on is critical for maintaining good pelvic health. Let us see what happens during menopause:

Hormonal Changes & Their Effects

Menopause lowers your oestrogen, and this affects the pelvic floor muscles and connective tissue integrity. Another hormone, progesterone, drops, too. Is progesterone helpful only for pregnancy? No. It does much more than most people realise. This natural hormone helps you breathe easier, keeps your heart strong, helps maintain strong bones, and keeps your nerves working smoothly. When progesterone levels are healthy, many women feel more relaxed and in better spirits because it naturally helps counter cortisol, the stress hormone. During menopause, as progesterone levels drop, women often notice these helpful effects slipping away, which can make this transition more challenging.

Though present in lower quantities in women, testosterone influences energy levels, sex drive, and lean muscle mass maintenance. It works with oestrogen and progesterone for better brain function and bone health. When menopause causes other hormones to drop, the testosterone present affects where fat builds up in your body. Some women may get ovarian cysts as their hormones change. These changes can also indirectly affect pelvic floor health by altering the hormonal balance that supports muscle and tissue integrity.

Common Pelvic Floor Disorders During Menopause

As hormone levels, especially oestrogen, decrease during menopause, your pelvic floor muscles naturally start losing strength. This can lead to two common health changes many women experience:

• Urinary incontinence means you might notice unexpected urine leaks, especially when coughing or sneezing. This happens due to the reduced strength and elasticity of your pelvic floor muscles, making it harder to hold urine when there is sudden pressure.
• Pelvic organ prolapse occurs when the pelvic floor cannot support your pelvic organs as well as before, and this leads to these organs shifting downwards into the vaginal canal. This can make you feel:
  • Pelvic heaviness
  • Urination or bowel movement difficulty
  • Sexual activity discomfort

Sexual Health Changes During Menopause

Due to decreasing oestrogen levels, you may notice your vagina feels drier than before, and its walls become thinner and less stretchy/elastic. These body changes can make sex uncomfortable and hard to enjoy, which affects your daily life. Such sexual changes/dysfunction often lead to difficulties with sexual desire, arousal, and reaching orgasm, impacting both your sexual health and intimate relationships.

Managing Menopause & Pelvic Floor Changes

As you pass through menopause, your oestrogen levels drop, pelvic muscles weaken, urinary incontinence arises, pelvic organ prolapses, and sexual life gets affected. However, practical strategies and medical interventions can help manage symptoms and enhance pelvic floor health.

Treatment Options

Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) can restore oestrogen in the body, making muscles more elastic and stronger. It prevents connective tissues from becoming thin, thus supporting the pelvic organs; it also lowers your risks of prolapse and bladder problems. Knowing the relationship between the pelvic floor and menopause helps guide treatment choices.

Surgical intervention is necessary for more serious cases like severe prolapse or extreme bladder problems. Various surgical options, like colpocleisis or sacrocolpopexy, can help support prolapsed organs and strengthen the tissues around them. Most of the options are minimally invasive.

Exercise & Lifestyle Modifications

One of the best ways to address these concerns is by doing targeted pelvic floor exercises like Kegels every day. These can strengthen your pelvic floor muscles, help you control your bladder and bowels better, improve your sexual life, and reduce the risk of prolapse. Consistent practice significantly improves symptoms for many women. Aim for three sets of 10–15 repetitions daily, focusing on exercise tightening and relaxing phases to train muscles effectively.

Making simple daily changes can help support your pelvic floor health:

• Balance your weight in a healthy range.
• Take foods with plenty of fibre to lower muscle strain and avoid constipation.
• Cut back on coffee and alcohol consumption since these can irritate your bladder.
• Quit smoking to reduce continuous coughing and improve overall health.
• Practise proper lifting techniques and avoid heavy lifting.
• Avoid activities that put excessive pressure on the pelvic floor.
• Try not to strain your muscles.

Signs You Need Medical Help

You must know when to visit the doctor to manage pelvic floor health during menopause. In case you develop some complications concerning bladder control, like an inability to withhold urine, prolapse of your pelvic organs, and pain while having sex, then you should seek medical care immediately. They may dominate your life, but proper guidance can enable you to handle them effectively.

Some signs you should see a doctor:

• When a cough or sneeze ends in urine leaks.
• Feeling heaviness, bulging, or discomfort in your pelvic area.
• Pain or decreased sensation/feeling during intercourse.

Early consultation is key to preventing complications and improving overall pelvic health. Seeking professional advice promptly can help prevent complications and maintain a high quality of life during menopause.

Take Control of Your Pelvic Health: Expert Solutions for Menopausal Women

You need not have to suffer pelvic floor problems during menopause. You can maintain a healthy pelvic floor if you know what is happening and act upon it. Regular Kegel exercises, adopting healthy habits, and getting the right professional advice at the right time will help you ensure a healthy pelvic floor.
At JOGO, we offer painless, non-surgical Digital Therapeutics (DTx) solutions. We can help you take care of your symptoms for better wellness. Connect with our experts today.

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