Enuresis, the clinical term for bed wetting, is defined as involuntary urination. This usually applies to children, ages four to five and may be either nocturnal, diurnal, or both.
If your child wakes up in the morning, soaked in urine, and you stand helpless and frustrated, this article is designed for you.
The stats - Enuresis is one of the most prevalent and frustrating disorders of childhood. A child is expected to sleep through the night without wetting the bed between the ages of two and four.
However, at age four, 25% of children still wet the bed; at age five, 20%; at age six, 15%; at age ten, 8%; at age fourteen, 4%; and at age eighteen and over, 2% of the population are still bed wetters. There is overall agreement among researchers that bed wetting has a clear hereditary element.
Bed wetting is characterized by being unable to recognize the signal that is being sent from the filled bladder to the brain during sleep. As a result, instead of contracting the sphincter muscle, the child relaxes the bladder and starts to urinate. This may be corrected by learning preventive measures.
A psychological cause, such as family problems, social adjustment, or fears, is a factor but for most Enuretics, the primary source of the issue is unusually deep sleep.
Many parents of young children are familiar with the dribbling problem - when involuntary drops of urine will discharge during the day. This typically happens in children age four to eight. Dribbling generally happens when the child is busy in an activity that requires mental concentration (e.g., watching TV, playing computer games).
The child does not recognize the signal from the bladder, relaxes the sphincter muscle, starts to urinate, and stops immediately by contracting the sphincter muscle. The consequences of this behaviour are the constant wet spots on the child’s clothes.
Unfortunately, many treatments are advertised on the internet and in health magazines with high price tags and little or no research to back them up.
So what really works?
A number of alternative treatments including Homeopathy, Reflexology, Acupuncture, Shiatsu, Hypnosis, Fluid absorbing diets and other methods have been tried but by and large they have not been shown to have successful outcomes.
Behavioural treatment is considered the most effective therapy for bed wetting. The child undergoes a learning process that is designed to teach him to activate the continence mechanism. Most children will outgrow bed wetting after adolescence, however there is no justification to let a child suffer from bed wetting during childhood.
Bed wetting affects a child’s quality of life, and timely treatment improves the quality of life. The most effective treatment so far is the child sleeps with an enuresis alarm which starts to ring when the child starts to urinate. The purpose of the ringing is to activate the reflex system and create a learning process.
The goal of the buzzer is not to teach the child to wake up at night but to teach him to restrain himself. When the child does not wake up, the buzzer acts on his subconscious reflex mechanism. The buzzer is an essential component, to measure the reflex response and asses the child response to the treatment. It is not an overnight cure and parents must preserve
Treatment with a bed wetting alarm is the only treatment that has been found to be effective with 40-50% of patients.
Here are some tips to help your child cope with bed wetting
Focus on the problem: bed wetting. Avoid blaming or punishing your child. Remember, your child cannot control the bed wetting, and blaming and punishing just make the problem worse.
Be patient and supportive. Reassure and encourage your child often. Do not make an issue out of bed wetting each time it happens. If you or your spouse wet the bed as a kid, remind your child that mommy or daddy had the same issue and eventually outgrew it.
Enforce a "no teasing" rule in the family. No one is allowed to tease the child about the bed wetting, including those outside the immediate family. Do not discuss the bed wetting in front of other family members.
Encourage responsibility. Help your child understand that the responsibility for being dry is his or hers and not that of the parents. Reassure your child that you want to help him or her overcome the problem. In addition, have your child help in the clean-up process
Make clean-up easy. To increase comfort and reduce damage, use washable absorbent sheets, layer sheets among waterproof bed covers, and use room deodorizers.
Tips to Prevent Bed wetting
Along with supporting your child emotionally, there are a number of steps you can take that may help reduce the number of bed wetting accidents. Here are more tips.
-Reduce evening fluid intake. Do not give your child anything to drink in the two hours before bedtime, especially drinks such as tea or sodas that contain caffeine.
-Have your child go to the bathroom before getting into bed.
-Set a goal for your child of getting up at night to use the toilet.Instead of focusing on making it through the night dry, help your child understand that it is more important to wake up every night to use the toilet.
-Make sure the child has easy access to the toilet. Clear the path from his or her bed to the toilet and install night-lights. Provide a portable toilet if necessary.
-Reward your child for remaining dry. A system of sticker charts and rewards works for some children. The child gets a sticker on the chart for every night of remaining dry. A certain number of stickers earn a reward.
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