As happens to many new mothers, I remember how surprised I was just days after having my baby by the sensation of warm blood flowing every time I stood up.

Of course, that's what I thought it was until the blood cleared and I determined it was urine. Then I got panicky: Was I forever going to be incontinent, the medical term for an inability to control urination? Fortunately, our bodies recover quickly so that a few months after having my baby, I was glad not to be wearing diapers myself!

Unfortunately, urinary incontinence affects many women, and not just new mothers - about 25 percent of women prior to menopause struggle with this condition, and over 40 percent following the menopausal transition.

Even though this medical problem isn't considered a normal part of aging, it clearly is a common enough one to be of concern to many women. If incontinence is cramping your style, here are some facts you should know about this condition.

The most important step is to know which of the several types of incontinence you are dealing with. Do any of these scenarios seem familiar to you?

• You're on a coast-to-coast flight and forgot to use the toilet onboard. As you run to the restroom after landing, you dribble a bit prior to reaching the toilet. You're probably suffering from overflow incontinence that occurs once the bladder has reached maximum capacity and urine has literally nowhere to go but out.
  
• You develop a burning sensation while peeing and then find that you need to pee frequently - and yet you have very little output, even though each time you get an urge to urinate you can barely hold it. This is probably urge incontinence, when the bladder is prone to spasms that lead to leakage.
  
• You went to the bathroom just an hour ago but still leak urine during a fit of sneezing. This is stress incontinence, when urine is leaked when you cough, laugh, or engage in some other type of exertion.

If you've established that you have an incontinence problem, what can you do? First, talk to your doctor to help sort out what's really going on. Any associated leg weakness, loss of bowel control, or back pain may indicate a neurological emergency. Similarly, excessive thirst, weight loss, and large urine volumes may imply diabetes. And fever and back pain can accompany a urinary infection.

In the meantime, here are some ways of dealing with these embarrassing symptoms:

• Avoid triggers such as caffeine and alcohol. Both of these will increase urine volume and your urge to urinate.
• Consider losing weight, since being obese doubles your risk of incontinence.
• Do repetitions of the infamous Kegel exercises - squeezing and releasing the same muscles you use when you stop and start the urine flow. Aim for 30 squeezes per day but avoid doing these while urinating.
• If you have an overactive bladder, consider medications that minimize bladder irritability.
• Think about wearing absorbent panty liners.
• Keep feminine wipes or baby wipes in your purse for quick cleanup.

These are just temporary measures until you can be evaluated by a specialist to determine the cause of your incontinence. Consider meeting with a urogynecologist to discuss treatment options, which may involve being fitted with a device called a pessary, which is placed in the vagina like a diaphragm. There are also minimally invasive surgical treatments that work very well to eliminate stress incontinence.