- What causes the child's difficulty to hold the pee
- Daytime infant urinary incontinence or daytime bedwetting:
- Infantile nocturnal urinary incontinence or nocturnal enuresis:
- How to identify urinary incontinence in children
- How is treatment for childhood urinary incontinence
Infant urinary incontinence is when the child is unable to hold the pee during the day or at night after 5 years of age. When the lack of pee control happens during the day, this is called daytime enuresis, and when it happens during the night, and the child pees in bed, this is called nighttime enuresis.
Normally, the child can control the pee and poop properly, without the need for specific treatment, but sometimes it may be necessary to make a treatment with own devices, drugs or physical therapy.
What causes the child's difficulty to hold the pee
Daytime infant urinary incontinence or daytime bedwetting:
- Bladder very full because the child ignores the signs and does not go to the bathroom to avoid having to stop playing; Frequent urinary infection; Overactive bladder, in which the muscles that serve to prevent urine outflow involuntarily contract, leading to urine leakage; Severe changes such as cerebral palsy, spina bifida, brain or nerve damage.
Infantile nocturnal urinary incontinence or nocturnal enuresis:
- The child does not notice the signs that he should get up to pee due to the slower development of the "brain-bladder" connection; Increased urine production at night; Anxiety; Genetic causes, as there is a 40% chance of a child having enuresis night if it happened to one of your parents, and 70% if it was both.
In addition to these causes, problems in the urinary system, such as deformities or repeated urinary infections, can also cause nocturnal enuresis, as well as brain problems. However, these last two causes are less frequent.
How to identify urinary incontinence in children
Parents should note that if a child shows the following signs after 5 years of age:
- Not being able to hold the pee during the day, keeping your panties or underwear wet, damp or smelling of pee; Not being able to hold the pee, peeing in bed, more than once a week.
The age at which the child is able to control the pee during the day and night varies between 2 and 4 years, so if after that stage the child still has to wear a diaper during the day or during the night, you should talk to the pediatrician on this subject, but the pediatric urologist is also an option.
How is treatment for childhood urinary incontinence
Initially, parents should take some precautions such as:
- Do not offer liquids after 8 pm; Take the child to pee before going to bed; Take the child to pee every 2 or 3 hours, and about 20 minutes after drinking water or juice.
To make life easier every day it is also a good idea to put a waterproof cover to cover the child's mattress, to take a change of extra clothes to the nursery or preschool.
However, when these strategies are not enough, the pediatrician may indicate the use of a small alarm that is placed inside the panties or underwear, which has a humidity sensor, and thus, when the first drops of pee come out, the alarm sounds and the child has to go to the bathroom to pee. This is one of the strategies that has the most results.
In case of overactive bladder, the pediatrician can prescribe anticholinergic remedies, such as Desmopressin, Oxybutynin and Imipramine, they can also be used, because they reduce the production of urine and calm the bladder.
Physiotherapy can also be a form of treatment through exercises that strengthen the child's pelvic muscles, in addition to scheduling times for the child to urinate. Another possibility is sacral neurostimulation, which is a technique, which consists of sticking an electrode in the child's sacrum, between the end of the back, and the beginning of the butt to stimulate the control of urine and feces, being more used when the child has difficulty in controlling feces and urine.
Find out all the details about Child Urinary Incontinence Treatment.
