Link found between muscle damage during childbirth, condition causing fallen bladd...( vagina or lower bowel. One of the most...),Health

vagina or lower bowel. One of the most common effects of the condition is urinary incontinence that is, the inability to control the release of urine. Many women with prolapse experience a protrusion or bulging in the vaginal area. The condition is common; one of nine women has surgery to correct prolapse and other pelvic floor disorders in her lifetime.

The U-M researchers studied 151 women with prolapse and compared them with 135 women who do not have prolapse. Magnetic resonance imaging was used to determine the extent of damage to the levator ani muscles. The women's vaginal closure force at rest and while contracting her pelvic muscle also was measured.

Women with prolapse were found to have a much higher rate of major levator ani damage than women without prolapse (55 percent compared with 16 percent). When they asked women to contract their muscles, the muscles were 40 percent weaker in women with prolapse.

In addition, about 52 percent of the women in the study with prolapse recalled having forceps used during childbirth, nearly twice the amount (about 27 percent) of women in the study who do not have prolapse who remembered that forceps were used. Thirty-one percent of women with prolapse reported a family history of the condition, compared with 13 percent of the women without prolapse.

The researchers from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology have joined forces with a colleague in the U-M College of Engineering, James A. Ashton-Miller, Ph.D., who has helped to create the intricate computer simulations necessary for understanding how the levator ani muscles are damaged. The computer modeling is a vital part of this line of research, DeLancey notes.

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Contact: Katie Gazella
kgazella@umich.edu
734-764-2220
University of Michigan Health System
31-Jan-2007

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