Bedwetting In Older Children

Bedwetting occurs 40% of the time among children ages three. The percentage goes down as the children grow older. It occurs 20 percent of the time on children at the age of five, ten percent at age six and three percent at age 12. At the middle years of childhood, often parents seeks pediatric assistance to eliminate bed wetting.

For the child to stop bed wetting, the child's brain should send a signal to stop the emptying of his bladder. The child's bladder must be able to send a signal to his brain strong enough to awaken the child. The neural development is complex, the process involves having the bladder develop a strong enough signal to the brain for the child to wake up.

In some instances, the parents put undue pressure on the child to develop bladder control before he is ready to do so. The parents mistakenly believes that bed wetting is a way for the child to get back at them. Thus they try to force the child to change his behavior.

The child then becomes depressed and discourage when he continues bed wetting.  Despite the parents best intention, bed wetting is beyond the child s control.  The child then feels extereme frustration when he continues to bed wet.

Parents of bedwetting children need to be supportive. The parents should be sensitive and aware of the child's feelings. The child undergoes embarrassment and humiliation because of his problem. Especially if his friends find out. The parents must reassure the child on his condition.

Theories abound about the possible reasons of bed-wetting. A lot of parents are afraid that a disease or virus is causing the problem. But only about one percent of the cases are actually related to diseases or infections of the kidney or bladder.

Other possible causes are diabetes or urinary system defects. The child should generally experience a large volume of urination during the day, or severe discomfort with urination.

Bedwetting children are usually completely physically and psychologically normal. The delay of bladder control is the simple reason for continued bed-wetting. The child normally inherits this traits from his parents. The child normally stops bed wetting at the same age as his parents did.

One of the factor that might cause bedwetting in children is an immature internal signal to awaken the child when his bladder is full. In this case the bladder empties without the brain ever knowing about it. A method to increase this internal signals is to have the child put on bedwear that have a sensor for moisture. So, when the child starts urinating the sensor triggers an alarm

In some cases, it would still be up to the parents to wake the child up and then take him to the bathroom. If the process repeats everynight, it will help the child learn to wake himself up.

Another option is medication.

The first type of medication decreases the amount of urine produced. A child who wets the bed, has a low hormonal level. The hormone is called antidiuretic hormone. The hormone regulates the urine produced by the kidneys.

The antidiuretic hormone increases water retention, thus amount of urine filling the bladder is reduced. If the level of the hormone is low, the child will produce a lot of urine during sleep.

Another medication called DDAVP reduces urine production of the kidneys. DDAVP helps awaken the child much more easily.

Another medication is called imipramine. This is an anti-depressant that has a similar effect. But imipramine has side effects that include nausea and insomnia. In high dosages, the medication causes irregular heartbeats and therefore ever rarely prescribed.