Seeking A Cure For Bedwetting

Bedwetting, also know as nocturnal enuresis is regarded as normal for children 4 years old and below. However, statistics show that 14 percent of children ranging from 5 to 13 years old still wet their beds during nighttime.

Most of the time, some parents resort to punishing their children in order to "discipline them on such behavior" and to treat them out from bedwetting. But, these parents do not realize that their children also want to overcome this problem.

Although children can occasionally have nighttime "accident" up to age 5, kids who are still wetting their beds regularly may have nocturnal enuresis. This problem, which is usually more common among boys than in girls and which runs in families, can persist over the teen years of a child.  According to a study conducted by the National Kidney Foundation, children of both parents who have wetted their beds when they were kids, have a 70 percent tendency of bedwetting.

What is disappointing is that many parents are unaware that there may be a cure for bedwetting and thus they do not bother to ask their child's pediatrician about it. At the same time, pediatricians are not also going out of their way to routinely check if bedwetting is already a problem with the kid.

And they should do this especially for older children. According to studies, bedwetting in older kids is common such that 20 percent of 5-year-old children wet their beds. And so do 10 percent of 6-year-old kids and 3 percent of those in the age 12 bracket.

It is especially important to address these nighttime problems with older kids and not to berate or punish them. Parents can sometimes get frustrated if their child wets his bed and they mistakenly regard this as being deliberately done and acting out.

Parents should also see to it that the siblings of the bedwetting child do not tease or make fun of him. Bedwetting can make a child become embarrassed and will make him avoid joining activities such as sleepovers and camping.  Parents who also blame the child can damage his self-esteem and it can become a big psycho-social stressor and could actually cause  psychological difficulties.

However, there are various ways and treatments to cure bedwetting. 

It is often the case that a child overcomes bedwetting as he grows older and the first step for parents to do is to reassure their kid that he will be able to stop bedwetting in time and should there be  problem in overcoming this, they can go for treatments to cure his enuresis.

One common procedure used by parents to treat the bedwetting problem of their children is to let them wear underwear or pajamas that have a sensor equipped to detect moisture and sets off an alarm should the child starts to urinate.

Most of the time, children who suffer from nocturnal enuresis are also deep sleepers such that the parents and the whole family have already woken up because of the alarm but he will sleep through it.

In this case, the parents should proceed over to wake up the child and let him use the bathroom. If this process were repeated regularly every night, this will help the child learn to get up from bed all by himself which will eventually treat his bedwetting problem.

If bedwetting alarms do not work, medication is the second option to treat nocturnal enuresis.

It has been noticed that most children who wet their beds have lower levels of antidiuretic hormones -the chemicals produced by the kidneys to regulate the urine produced in the organ. This hormone helps in the retention of water in the kidneys that reduces the amount of urine in the bladder. At night, children who have low levels of this produce a lot of urine.

DDAVP is a medication commonly prescribed by pediatricians to treat bedwetting problems of children. It reduces the volume of urine produced by the kidneys at night and it can help waking up at night easy for a child.

Another medication for curing bedwetting is imipramine. This medicine is considered as an anti-depressant and has a similar effect with DDAVP as bedwetting treatment. The disadvantage however for this enuresis treatment medicine is that it causes dry mouth, nausea and insomnia. It has also been shown that imipramine can cause irregular heartbeats to patients and death. Because of these effects, doctors rarely prescribe this medication to cure bedwetting..

Treating bedwetting can be frustrating for parents. Setting up bedwetting alarms to address this problem is safe but getting medications to treat enuresis should be proceeded in care. It is recommended that parents should determine first the problem with their child's pediatrician before letting the child undergo bedwetting treatments especially in cases that need medications.