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Bed-wetting in children: causes

The exact reasons for bed-wetting are not very well understood, but here are some possibilities.

• Bed-wetting seems to run in families. The likelihood of a child wetting the bed is 40% if one parent suffered, and 70% if both parents suffered. So there is often a genetic element.
• One of the most common reasons for bed-wetting is the bladder muscle contracting and emptying the bladder when it is only half full of urine. This is because the child is just being slightly slow in developing the necessary nerve and muscle control there is nothing wrong.
• Some children produce a lot of urine at night, because the mechanisms that reduce urine production at night are slow to develop. Again, there is nothing actually wrong.
• There is very little scientific evidence to back up the idea that bed-wetting is a psychological problem. Some children do wet the bed if they have anxieties at home or school, but more often bed-wetting is a cause (rather than a result) of unhappiness.
• Parents often think that their child has a different, deeper sleep pattern than other children. There is no scientific evidence for this. The problem is more a difficulty with waking, as the sensation of a full bladder is not enough to wake the child.
• Occasionally, a medical condition such as a urine infection is responsible

Important points about bed-wetting

• Your child cannot help wetting the bed.
• Your child is not wetting the bed out of spite, or to attract attention, or by being too lazy to get out of bed.
• Try not to get irritated, and do not criticize your child for bed-wetting. Punishing a child for bed-wetting is wrong, it certainly will not help, and may make it worse.
• You and your child may feel depressed about the bed-wetting, and may feel it will never stop. Keep reminding yourself that most children grow out of it. Think of it as a temporary problem.

Dr Phil Hammond looks at the frustrations of bed-wetting, with a little help from ‘Henry’, in his informative and entertaining guide on bed-wetting (click on video below).

 

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