Urethral & Bladder Slings for Women

How a Sling Works

In women with stress uri­nary incon­ti­nence, pelvic mus­cles and tis­sue have been weak­ened by preg­nan­cy, child­birth, trau­ma, radi­a­tion, pri­or surgery, mus­cle dam­age or hor­mon­al changes, caus­ing the blad­der and ure­thra to relax from their nor­mal posi­tions. The sud­den, added pres­sure from cough­ing, sneez­ing, laugh­ing or sim­ple lift­ing can cause acci­den­tal loss of urine.

A sling helps to cor­rect the con­di­tions that cause stress uri­nary incon­ti­nence with a mesh mate­r­i­al that sup­ports the ure­thra. A nar­row strip of polypropy­lene mesh is sur­gi­cal­ly placed in your body to cra­dle your ure­thra and give it a point of sup­port. The self-fix­at­ing mesh anchors itself to tis­sue and mus­cle in the space sur­round­ing the urethra.

Slings can be made from a syn­thet­ic per­ma­nent bio­com­pat­i­ble mate­r­i­al which helps to pro­mote tis­sue ingrowth, which is essen­tial to long-term suc­cess and pro­vides sup­port to your ure­thra. In some slings to treat female stress uri­nary incon­ti­nence, a nar­row strip of mesh is placed in your body to sup­port the ure­thra. The Urol­o­gist uses a tran­sob­tu­ra­tor approach to place the sup­port­ive mesh. This approach avoids the retrop­u­bic space, the area of loose con­nec­tive tis­sue between the blad­der, pubic bone and abdom­i­nal wall. With this approach, nar­row mesh car­ri­ers are passed through an area near the groin at the obtu­ra­tor of the pubic bone. The mesh is then attached and pulled into place under the ure­thra. Once placed, the ham­mock cra­dles your ure­thra and gives it a point of sup­port. Most patients are con­ti­nent imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the pro­ce­dure and can resume nor­mal, non-stren­u­ous activ­i­ties with­in a few days.