title: [Effectiveness of an illustrated home exercise guide on promoting urinary continence during pregnancy: a pragmatic randomized clinical trial].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the effectiveness of an illustrated home exercise guide targeting the pelvic floor muscles in promoting urinary continence during pregnancy.
  
  
  METHODS
  A randomized clinical trial was performed with 87 participants, evaluated six times during pregnancy and divided into three groups: Gsup, supervised; Gobs, not supervised, and Gref, women who did not perform the home exercises program. A miction diary and perineometry were used to evaluate urinary incontinence (primary outcome) and pelvic floor muscle strength (secondary outcome), respectively. The Kruskal-Wallis test with post hoc Dunn's and chi-square and Z tests with Bonferroni correction were used for continuous variables and proportions, respectively, with the level of significance set at 5%.
  
  
  RESULTS
  At the end of the study, 6.9% of pregnant women in the Gsup and Gobs had urinary incontinence, while 96.6% of Gref women were incontinent. Regarding pelvic floor muscle function, Gsup and Gobs had mean contractions of 10 and 8.9 cmH2O, respectively, while Gref had a value of 4.7 cmH2O. Both results were significant.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  An illustrated home exercise guide targeting the pelvic floor muscles is effective in promoting urinary continence during pregnancy, even without permanent supervision. clinicaltrials.gov Registry--NCT00740428.
authors.affiliation: Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu, Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, Botucatu, SP, Brasil.
authors.forename: Liamara Cavalcante
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: de Assis
authors.affiliation: Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu, Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, Botucatu, SP, Brasil.
authors.forename: João Marcos
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Bernardes
authors.affiliation: Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu, Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, Botucatu, SP, Brasil.
authors.forename: Angélica Mércia Pascon
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Barbosa
authors.affiliation: Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu, Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, Botucatu, SP, Brasil.
authors.forename: Ana Carolina Monteiro
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Santini
authors.affiliation: Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu, Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, Botucatu, SP, Brasil.
authors.forename: Luana Schneider
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Vianna
authors.affiliation: Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu, Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, Botucatu, SP, Brasil.
authors.forename: Adriano
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dias
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005081:Exercise Therapy / Q000193:education*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications / Q000517:prevention & control*; D014549:Urinary Incontinence / Q000517:prevention & control*