Ladies incontinence protection before Tena Lady

[DDBB12]

These days in the UK ladies incontinence protection is sold everywhere. Tena Lady, Always Discreet and Supermarkets own brand. But what did women use before these were generally available?
Growing up in the 70s and 80s in the UK I remember seeing various adverts for mail order incontinence pants in newspapers and magazines. I'd imagine stress incontinence from childbirth was very common then, so did ladies use extra thick sanitary towels everyday with plastic pants?
Does anyone have any experience of what your mother or grandmother used?

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

From the 1963 (that I know of) to the 1980's, Kleinert's made adult size rubber panties. They were like baby panties but they were fairly close fitting. The origianls were made of smooth white material. Some time in the late '60's or1970s these were replaced by grainy milky white material that were fuller cut. They were sold in the Womens' Department of places like Shepards in Providence and later Edgar's in malls and shopping centers. Also, there was Salk Sain-Patn that were a regular looking panty made of rayon that was lined with polyurethane and used some kind of throw-away liner that had an akhesive to hold them to the panty that I frst saw in c1963

[ValentinesStuff]

Oddly while looking at an online copy of a news paper for the day after my birth in 1966, I wondered what was happening when I was born, I found an ad for incontinence wear. Cloth diapers, pads, and waterproof pants. Alas the company is long out of business, although the building is still there.

[DDBB12]

What company was this? Do you have a copy of the advert?

[steveg]

I remember hearing my mom talk who use to work in a nursing home for developmental disabled adults where all most all are diapered.  She use to mention having people in cloth diaper and rubber pants both men and woman she said it was easier to change the ladies who were in sun dresses than some of teh guy who wore overalls LOL this has to be in the late 70's early 80's she did the caregiving in the summer and school bus driving during the school year 

[DDBB12]

These days they could be wearing disposable adult pullups. Make the carers job much easier.

[ValentinesStuff]

On 5/27/2021 at 3:11 PM, DDBB12 said:

What company was this? Do you have a copy of the advert?

Should show up there.

 

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

5 hours ago, DDBB12 said:

These days they could be wearing disposable adult pullups. Make the carers job much easier.

Yes and no. Theise carers are part of a larger system. If you know anything about medical diapers, they are the bottom of the barrel. Any system based on single-use items  HAS to be more expensive. To keep expenses down, corners HAVE to be cut.. The first corner cut is quality. The next is security; on two counts. Re-usables are cleaned in-house so you know where they've been. Also, these things are made, packaged and sealed in some third world place. Can you say "Wuhan" and "Melanine-spked pet food"? Do you think China and some of the other third world places are our friends? So you end up giving back whatever you saved in convenience in cost and risk, the latter of which increases in probability the more esternally supplied, cheaply made and packaged items are used, to a point where there is almost a certainty that  contaminated items will enter the overall system somewhere and be used unknowingly since the packages are sealed and the items not micro inspected before use. Also, these fecal and other disease-bearing items will require special disposal procedures and conditions: Ka-CHING. It is called "penny wise and pound follish"; and we all know what Pennywise does, right?

[DDBB12]

3 hours ago, ValentinesStuff said:

Should show up there.

 

Just seen that and I like it. More descriptive than the adverts in British newspapers. They would have a drawing of some pants under the heading of incontinence. Not much information.

[DDBB12]

Here's some old British adverts for pads. They don't say there are for incontinence, but I'm sure a lot of them were used for it.

 

These sanitary knickers were probably also used for incontinence as well as periods/

 

[2sail2]

 

My mom wore Kotex belted maxi pads.  They came in a pretty big purple box--about the size of three loaves of bread.  The pads  were pretty thick and hard.  I saw the   box often outside the bathroom vanity against a wall.  Sometimes she wore two at a time under her dress.  

Oh, sorry I see this topic is about incontinence

There wasn't much to choose from, I imagine most used menstrual pads.  I searched here and did find some references to incontinence.  For more ads http://www.mum.org/paddir.htm

[stevewet]

On 5/27/2021 at 5:37 AM, DDBB12 said:

These days in the UK ladies incontinence protection is sold everywhere. Tena Lady, Always Discreet and Supermarkets own brand. But what did women use before these were generally available?
Growing up in the 70s and 80s in the UK I remember seeing various adverts for mail order incontinence pants in newspapers and magazines. I'd imagine stress incontinence from childbirth was very common then, so did ladies use extra thick sanitary towels everyday with plastic pants?
Does anyone have any experience of what your mother or grandmother used?

I don't think my grandmother used anything. She always smelled of stale pee. 

[Wet Knight]

On 5/27/2021 at 6:32 AM, Little BabyDoll Christine said:

From the 1963 (that I know of) to the 1980's, Kleinert's made adult size rubber panties. They were like baby panties but they were fairly close fitting. The origianls were made of smooth white material. Some time in the late '60's or1970s these were replaced by grainy milky white material that were fuller cut. They were sold in the Womens' Department of places like Shepards in Providence and later Edgar's in malls and shopping centers. Also, there was Salk Sain-Patn that were a regular looking panty made of rayon that was lined with polyurethane and used some kind of throw-away liner that had an akhesive to hold them to the panty that I frst saw in c1963

In 1962 I bought myself two pairs of white Kleinerts  adult sized rubber pants from a rather seedy "Surgical" shop, somewhere near Acton in north-west London.   One was Directoire style that came down my thighs, half way to my knees and the other Babypant style.

Both pairs had several 1/4" holes punched either side at the hip, advertised as 'for ventilation', but conveniently stopped the squeaking when sitting down, and neither of them had tight enough elastic at the legs, so I used to add an elastic band.

 

[nappylover78]

I guess it would have been thick sanitary pads for light leakage, and for those with more severe incontinence (which must have been common, and less treatable, back then) it would have been adult-sized terry nappies and plastic/rubber pants ordered from medical supply catalogues. It wouldn't have been a happy existence, with rashes, smelling of urine and the obvious bulk of the nappies, so many of said women would probably have rarely left the home.