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When we use a public bathroom, we’re loath to touch, well, anything. We tip-toe, we hover. We squat in a kind of careful cringe, keeping our bottoms several inches above the seat. At least it’s a good workout for our thigh muscles—or is it?
Not at all, says physical therapist Miriam Graham, who specializes in pelvic floor health. Sitting on the toilet is, in fact, better for you. “When you hover, you don’t allow the pelvic floor muscles to relax fully, so you can’t completely void your urine,” Miriam says. That raises the risk of getting a bladder infection—plus it means you need to visit the loo more often. Even worse: After a while, you unconsciously compensate for that “incomplete emptying” by pushing down harder with your pelvic muscles while urinating. And that can lead to pelvic organ prolapse, where your bladder or other organs drop from their normal position and push against the walls of the vagina. Talk about unpleasant! Pelvic organ prolapse can cause urinary incontinence and make sex painful.
All right, we’re convinced! We’ll use those awful paper covers—and double up on the hand-washing, too.
–Miriam’s Rockville, Maryland, physical therapy practice, Restore Motion, offers pelvic floor classes for women with pain, incontinence, and other common problems.
