No, this bladder symptom is not normal
is not normal aging to deal with incontinence, although it is unfortunately more common than it needs to be. There is no fix if you don't even bring up your incontinence problems with your gyno. Dr. Elaine Waetjen of the University of California Davis School of Medicine, Sacramento, and colleagues evaluated 9 years of data of yearly checkups from the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN), a mult-icenter, multiracial/ethnic, and multidisciplinary longitudinal study of women ages 40 to 55 at baseline. Over 60% of the women with incontinence said that they never brought the topic up and that they just thought it was 'a normal part of aging.' The researchers emphasized that it's important for the gynos to bring it up, as these problems can be disabling and yet curable if a woman works with her health care provider.
Although this symptom is not normal, it is common. At least 30% of women between 25-45 have urinary incontinence, and by age 72 over 70% of women have this. There are specific types of urinary incontinence, including urge, stress, or mixed incontinence. Very few women will have other conditions such as neurological causes or conditions called overflow incontinence. There are many reversible causes of incontinence that you could evaluate with your gyno that do not mean surgery, although surgery is definitely an option for some cases:
Healing the vaginal wall and fixing Vaginal Atrophy
Improving your mobility
Improving constipation and straining
Curing low grade bladder infections
Strengthening pelvic floor muscle training
Mona Lisa Touch Therapy
ThermiVa therapy
Fluid management: don't over hydrate before aerobics class
Medications if training is not successful
Pessary use, they come in many shapes and sizes as the above picture shows.
Physical therapy
Botox of the bladder
Bulking agents
Posterior Tibial Nerve Stimulation