Abstract
1800 women recruited within 24 hours of vaginal delivery, were randomly allocated to one of two pelvic floor exercise policies aimed at preventing urinary incontinence. Nine hundred women received instruction currently available to all postnatal women in the West Berkshire Health District and 900 were encouraged to follow a more intensive regime endorsed by the use of a 4-week exercise diary. When assessed 10 days and 3 months after delivery, women allocated to the intensive policy were more likely to be persevering with their exercises. There were no differences between the two groups in terms of the prevalence or severity of urinary or faecal incontinence, but women in the intensive exercise group were less likely to report perineal pain and feelings of depression 3 months after delivery. These findings raise questions about the content of current postnatal exercise programmes. The components of these should now be formally evaluated in further randomised trials.
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