1 in 8 young women lack control
Mon 27 August 2012 by Angela Tufvesson, Continence Foundation of Australia
New research by Monash University reveals as many as one in eight healthy young women aged 16 to 30 have urinary incontinence. About 6 per cent of women reported stress incontinence, 4.5 per cent reported urge incontinence and 2 per cent reported both.
Most interestingly, none of the 1000 healthy young women surveyed for the study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, had ever been pregnant.
Study co-author Professor Susan Davis says the extent to which urinary incontinence affects younger women who have never been pregnant has not been well understood until now.
“An embarrassing problem, urinary incontinence is actually very common, affecting around 40 per cent of Australian women, but is usually attributed to past pregnancy, obesity or ageing,” Professor Davis said.
“Our study is the first to look at incontinence in young women who have never experienced a pregnancy. We found that one in eight young women are vulnerable to incontinence irrespective of common risk factors such as pregnancy or obesity.”