Why you should sit down in public toilets

A Doctor from TikTok says squatting over the toilet seat is a bad habit

TikTok is full of medical advice, and sometimes it makes you think you should change your bad habits. That’s what may happen with the topic of squatting over the toilet instead of sitting down to pee, as addressed by Alicia Jeffrey-Thomas, DPT, a pelvic floor physical therapist in Boston, Massachusetts.

According to her, squatting over the toilet isn’t good for pelvic floor muscles, which help to release urine and stool as well as support posture and assist with sexual function. When your bladder contracts to empty urine, your pelvic floor muscles relax to make it flow, but if you squat over the toilet, the muscles can’t relax.

So, in order to pee when you’re squatting, “you’re having to push past and bypass that normal mechanism,” Dr. Jeffrey-Thomas explained on TikTok. “If we’re constantly messing with that relationship between your pelvic floor and your bladder, that can lead to difficulties with controlling urinary urgency, as well as issues with stress incontinence,” she continued. So, if you keep on squatting you may end up being more inclined to pee yourself in the future.

Understandably, people don’t want to sit on public toilet seats because of germs but there’s a difference between germs being there and getting sick from them, says William Schaffner, M.D., an infectious disease specialist, and professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. “You can go out and swab the toilet seat and see that there are germs on it, but we can do that with almost any part of the environment, including your phone, which you put up to your face”, Dr. Schaffner says.

“If an uncovered public toilet seat were a real hazard, we would all know about it and there would be public health messaging about it all the time”, he says. In addition, “Doctor’s offices and ERs are not flooded with people who have sores on their fannies or have acquired serious infections on their genitalia from public toilet seats”.

“The act of squatting strongly engages and tenses the muscles of the groin and pelvic floor, which can potentially cause long-standing spasticity”, Dr. Kaufman, director of Central Park Urology, a division of Maiden Lane Medical says. This can lead to being unable to fully empty your bladder, which can raise your risk of developing a UTI (Urinary Tract Infection) and needing to go to the bathroom more often.

“Incomplete emptying of the bladder, if long-standing, can potentially damage the bladder’s detrusor muscle, exacerbating the problem”, he adds.

Ashley Rawlin, DPT, a doctor of physical therapy who specializes in women’s health issues agrees with Dr. Jeffrey-Thomas and points out that squatting over the toilet seat is different from a deep squat like you would do if you’re peeing outdoors because that position allows pelvic floor muscles to relax and your body doesn’t get any ambiguous signal. This is also the perfect position to poop.

However, for many, the problem is mainly that they’re disgusted with putting their bare butt on a public toilet seat. So, Dr. Schaffner suggests putting some toilet paper on the seat to avoid contact or using a disposable toilet seat cover or antibacterial wipes.

Nevertheless, if you happen to have not enough toilet paper or anything else, you can squat but just remember not to make it a habit because the problem is squatting over the seat too often.

Source wellandgood.com