If you’ve been asking yourself, “What can I do to stop peeing my pants when I cough?” — you are absolutely not alone. Leaking with coughing is incredibly common, and there are absolutely treatment options out there. Stress incontinence (also known as urinary leakage) is the technical term of “peeing when I cough”. Oftentimes, people that are dealing with stress incontinence don’t just pee when they cough, but also when they sneeze, laugh, jump, run, or do anything that requires physical exertion.

Leaking urine when you cough, laugh, or sneeze is a common concern of women. Peeing when you cough, sneeze, or laugh is also known as stress incontinence and it isn’t something you have to live with. Stress incontinence is a symptom that something isn’t working that should. This can often be a problem with your pelvic floor, core, and/or diaphragm. At Vivid Women’s Health in Doylestown and Newtown, PA, our team of pelvic floor PTs help women stop leaking so that they can live an active life without fear. 

If you’ve ever experienced leaking pee as a female, you’re not alone. In fact, up to 50% of women leak pee at some point in their lives. Leaking pee, also known as urinary incontinence is tied to decreased quality of life and can significantly affects a woman’s social life. Experiencing urinary leakage is also a top reason why women stop participating in an exercise routine. While leaking pee can feel embarrassing, it’s actually very common and often treatable.

Frequent urination is something that has been quoted to affect up to 40% of women. Often times women interchange frequent urination and urinary urgency or overactive bladder, however the conditions are very different.

Urine leakage while running is a common concern for runners. Some studies report that to 40% of runners struggle with urinary incontinence. Many choose to just wear a pad and continue running, however we caution anyone against this as this can lead to compensations and further problems down the road. You should never leak when you run and if you experience leakage, you should stop running at the mileage point where you experience leakage. A quick solution, might be to take a small break mid-run and then try to resume running only continuing if you can do so without leakage.