Search

Home > Portable Practical Pediatrics > Why Does My Child Wet the Bed (Pedcast)
Podcast: Portable Practical Pediatrics
Episode:

Why Does My Child Wet the Bed (Pedcast)
Category: Kids & family
Duration: 00:00:00
Publish Date: 2017-11-13 18:36:59
Description: Topic Introduction You want to see a parent get excited, well, just bring up the topic of bedwetting with a mom of an eight year old bed wetter and stand back. Bedwetting creates a lot of stress in both the parents of the bed wetter and the bedwetting child themselves. When families first bring up this issue with their pediatricians, most parents fear that there is something wrong with their child. In most cases, this is simply not true. Parents also think that their child's bedwetting emanates from something being wrong with their child's urinary bladder. This is also not true in most cases so I thought that it would be useful, especially if you have a bed wetter in your house, to put some of these misconceptions to bed so to speak (pun intended) and getting a better understanding of the cause, natural history, and treatment options that are useful. If you have been wondering, why does my child wet the bed, you've come to the right place to get the answer. Stay tuned and I will answer that question for you. Musical Introduction How do Urinary Bladders Work? Long time listeners of Portable Practical Pediatrics know I love to take my listeners to a place that I call "Science Drive" so we can talk numbers, chemistry, and various other scientific concepts you learned in science class. Refreshing you on a few scientific concepts will bring you an understanding of our topic today.  So, hang with me for a few minutes while we go over some science concepts you need to understand to get an understanding of why your child is wetting the bed. Concept #1-Your child's kidneys filter wastes out their blood and continuously make urine 24/7 even though they only eliminate that urine about every three hours. Urine production is constant and predictable at the rate of aboutError! Hyperlink reference not valid. But urine elimination only happens every three hours, during the day. Nighttime is an entirely different beast.  Let's do some simple math; that means that a 19kg (42 pound) four year old makes about 285 ml (9.5 ounces) of urine if they sleep for 10 hours. Unfortunately, most 4 year olds only have 8-ounce bladders, not large enough to hold 9.5 ounces. You can see that this child and their parents have a problem, too much urine and too small a bladder to hold a night's worth of urine. If this child doesn't wake up and go to the bathroom before morning, the bed is likely to be wet by morning. It's simple geometry; 9,5 ounces of urine to store in an eight ounce bladder. See the chart that I have created to check your child's nighttime urine numbers and better understand what your child is up against. Some will have large enough bladders to hold a nights worth of urine but many will not and are destined to be budgeters unless they can wake and use the bathroom. Interestingly, during childhood, girls have larger bladders than boys. Could this be why fewer girls are budgeters than boys? Probably. Age in years        Volume of urine in 10 hours        Calculated size of urinary bladder   4                                           5.6-11.3 ounces/night                       8 ounce capacity 5                                           6.3-12.6 ounces/night                       8.5 ounce capacity 6                                           7.3-14.6 ounces/night                       9 ounce capacity 7                                           7.6- 15.3 ounces/night                      9.5 ounce capacity 8                                           8.6- 17.3 ounces/night                      10 ounce capacity 9                                           9.6-19.3 ounces/night                       10.5 ounce capacity Concept #2- There are two levels of control of your child's bladder, at the spinal cord level where bladder emptying is an involuntary  (meaning the child no control) and at the upper brain level (the consciously controlled part of the brain) where an awake child can run the show.
Total Play: 0