Bedwetting

What is bedwetting?

The involuntary discharge of urine during sleep is called bedwetting. This term is used after the age by which bladder control should have been established, this is usually attained in children by the age of 5. Sometimes children up to the age of 6 or 7 also wet their beds, this is not a cause for concern because nighttime bladder control may not have been established in the child as yet. Bedwetting or enuresis is slightly more common in boys than in girls and often occurs more frequently in the first-born child.

What are the causes of enuresis or bedwetting?

A few of the causes of bedwetting are listed below:

• Difficulty waking up from sleep
• Hormonal factors such as not enough antidiuretic hormone (hormone that reduces the amount of urine that is manufactured in the kidney)
• Infections in the urinary tract
• Abnormalities in the ureter in girls and the urethral valves in boys
• Some kind of abnormalities in the spinal cord
• Genetic factors (bedwetting tends to run in the family)
• Small bladder, which makes it difficult to hold urine for a long time
• Slower than normal development of the central nervous system
• Chronic case of constipation
• Type 1 diabetes
• Stress which may be triggered by some factor

It is important to note that bed wetting is not caused by drinking too much of water or because the child is too lazy to get out of bed to use the bathroom. Remember that it is not a mental or behavior problem too.

What is the treatment available for bedwetting?

Luckily most children outgrow bedwetting on their own, if bedwetting has a family history, then the child is likely to stop wetting the bed when the parent did.

One method that may help control bedwetting is limiting the intake of fluids and urinating at the beginning of the bedtime routine and again just before falling off to sleep. There is also a stretching exercise that may be used to help your child hold more urine at night. This exercise is simple and only involves encouraging your child to delay daytime urination if the bladder is not completely full, thus making the urge go away after a few minutes.

Incase your child is still wetting the bed by the age of 7 and is motivated enough to want to stop, then the doctor may recommend treatment that is more aggressive, like the following.

Moisture Alarms
A small, battery-operated device that is available without a prescription at most of the pharmacies and connect to a moisture sensitive pad on your child’s bedding or pajamas senses the wetness and gives off an alarm. A moisture alarm actually gives off the sound just as your child begins to urinate which gives you enough time to wake and stop the urine stream and get the child to the toilet.

This device is highly effective; the only thing is that it takes some time before results can be displayed.

Medications
The various types of medications used for bedwetting can:

• Calm the bladder so that it may reduce contractions and increase the capacity of the bladder.
• Bring changes into your child’s waking and sleeping pattern and may also increase the amount of time a child can hold urine or reduce the amount of urine produced.
• Slow the nighttime production of urine.

There are also alternative therapies such as acupuncture, massage and hypnosis that is said to treat bedwetting. How effective it is, will only be proved after more research.

How do my child and I cope with bedwetting?

As said earlier, a child does not wet the bed to irritate his/her parents. Bedwetting or enuresis is involuntary. Try and be patient with your child. Here are some tips that will help you cope better.

• Plan for cleanup methods that are easy such as covering your child’s mattress with a plastic cover.
• Help your child adopt good habits like limiting the intake of liquids during the evening and making sure that your child urinates before going to bed.
• Sensitize yourself to the feelings of your child, encourage your child to express feelings of stress or anxiousness.
• Celebrate the effort your child puts into following the routine or helping you clean up., rather than punishing and teasing him/her for wetting the bed.

I am sure that with some support, care and understanding your child can surely look forward to dry nights ahead.