Your guide to pelvic-floor health: Symptoms of Pelvic Floor Dysfunction

Symptoms of pelvic floor dysfunction include:

Accidentally leaking small amounts of urine when you cough, sneeze, bend, lift, laugh, exercise or play sport. This is known as stress incontinence.

Losing urine for no apparent reason, feeling a sudden and urgent need to urinate or needing to urinate more frequently than you should (under normal circumstances, women who drink 2L of fluid a day should urinate between 5 and 7 times). These symptoms can indicate that you have an overactive bladder or a condition called urge incontinence. This occurs when the bladder holds less urine than it should (the normal capacity of an adult woman's bladder is 350–500ml).

Feeling an urgent need to defecate, leaking faeces, soiling yourself before you reach a toilet or accidentally passing wind. These symptoms describe a condition known as faecal incontinence.

Finding it difficult to empty your bladder or bowel, or experiencing pain during sexual intercourse. These symptoms can occur when your pelvic floor muscles are too tight.

Feeling a bulge or ache in your vagina, finding it difficult to keep a tampon in place, or sensing heaviness, discomfort, pulling, dragging or dropping in your pelvic region. These symptoms can indicate pelvic organ prolapse. This occurs when one or more of your pelvic organs (your bladder, bowel or uterus) become displaced and sag down into your vagina.

The Holistic Core Restore® programmes were created for Women who are ready to take charge of not only their Pelvic and Core Health but also their total wellbeing. No more "oops" moments!!