Is it enuresis that children love to wet the bed?

Enuresis in children refers to children over 5 years old who cannot control their own urination, often wet their beds at night, and sometimes pee their pants during the day. The disease is more common in boys, with a boy-to-girl ratio of about 2:1. Most children with enuresis can heal themselves after several years of onset, and girls have a higher rate of self-healing, but some children will continue into adulthood if untreated.

Clinical enuresis is generally divided into two categories: primary enuresis: refers to those who have been wetting the bed since birth; secondary enuresis: refers to children who have not wet the bed for a period of time (about 3 to 6 months) within the age of 5 years, and then re-enuresis.

What is the relationship between enuresis and sleep?

In recent years, children with enuresis have been examined by EEG and polyphthalometers, and it has been found that bedwetting occurs in the first 1/3 stage of sleep, when they are in deep sleep other than rapid sleep.

Enuresis can have a series of processes, beginning with physical restlessness, increased muscle tone, accelerated heartbeat, shortness of breath, and decreased skin resistance, which is a set of signs of awakening.

Correspondingly, the high-amplitude δ wave on the EEG is emitted, and after about a few seconds or minutes, the child is wetting the bed in a deep sleep, so it is difficult to wake up the enuresis child, sometimes it is often the adult who picks up the child who has wet the bed, changes into dry clothes and pants, he still does not wake up, and when he wakes up the next morning, the child has no memory of the bedwetting.

Dreams and bedwetting

Because bedwetting people often wake up in "wet dreams", such as falling into the river in a dream, people have long thought that bedwetting occurs during dreams.

In fact, bedwetting was not in the dream at that time, most children with enuresis had not had eye rapid movement sleep before bedwetting, and most of them appeared in the first burst of eye rapid movement sleep 2 hours after bedwetting, normal people have eye rapid movement sleep 4 to 6 times a night, and enuresis children have only eye fast movement sleep 2 to 3 times on the night of bedwetting, non-eye fast movement sleep, so some people speculate that bedwetting replaces dreamy eye fast sleep.

Experimental studies have proved that bedwetting is in front, dreaming is after, and the feeling of wet clothes sheets is programmed into the dream of bedwetters, which is "wet dreams", and children whose clothes and pants and sheets are dried in time do not do "wet dreams".

Many people dream of urinary urgency to find the toilet can not find, that is, do a "dream of finding the toilet", wake up in anxiety may be pants and sheets are wet with urine, but most of the urine is still in the bladder has not been solved, this is due to the bladder full signal is programmed into the dream, is the dream of normal people enuresis, enuresis children usually do not do this dream.

How is enuresis diagnosed in children?

The following 3 must be met to diagnose enuresis in children:

Repeated involuntary urination (daytime or nighttime) at least 2 times a month in children aged 5 to 6 years (or 4 years of intellectual age); enuresis severity: at least 2 enuresis per month in children aged 5 to 6 years, at least 1 enuresis per month in children over 6 years of age; enuresis not due to neurological damage, epilepsy, medical condition, or medications.

Therefore, when community physicians receive such patients, they are recommended to be referred to a neurological examination to exclude other diseases before enuresis can be diagnosed.

What are the treatments for enuresis in children?

Adjust the diet every day after 4 pm to drink less water, dinner is best to eat less liquid, should be salty and dry, do not drink water before going to bed (except in summer), nor should you eat watermelon, oranges, raw pears and other fruits and milk to reduce the amount of urine stored in the bladder at night.

Establish a reasonable lifestyle should make the child's life diet and living regular, should avoid excessive fatigue and mental tension, it is best to insist on taking a nap, so as not to sleep too deeply at night, it is not easy to be woken up by adults to urinate.

Before going to bed, you should not be overexcited, you should develop the habit of sleeping on time, parents should not tease their children too much before going to bed, do not let children do strenuous activities, and should not watch thrilling and tense movies and televisions, so as not to make children overexcited.

Before going to bed, clean the urine to develop the habit of draining the urine thoroughly before going to bed every day to empty the urine in the bladder, and families with conditions should bathe the child as much as possible before going to bed so that they can fall asleep comfortably, which can reduce the chance of bedwetting.

Timely change of wet futon pants children's sleeping bedding should be clean and warm, diapers should be replaced in time, do not let the child sleep in the wet bedding, which will make the child more likely to wet the bed.

Give the child more comfort and encouragement must point out that enuresis can make the child shy, anxious, fearful and cowering, if the parents do not care about the child's self-esteem, the use of scolding, threats, punishment means, will make the child more aggrieved and depressed, aggravate the psychological burden symptoms, not only will not alleviate but will aggravate the phenomenon of enuresis.

We believe that it is important that children with enuresis be treated only with comfort and encouragement, as a prerequisite for the success or failure of treatment.

Behavioral therapy

From the first day of treatment, parents are required to set a schedule for the child so that the calendar can be recorded every day (the calendar can be used), when wetting the bed, try to find factors that may cause bedwetting and record it on the schedule, such as not sleeping on time, too excited before going to bed, too excited during the day, too much fluid intake in the evening, etc. When the child has no bedwetting, he will draw a star on the schedule and give verbal praise or material rewards, and meet with the doctor once a week.

Establish conditioned reflexes From the beginning of treatment, parents are required to wake up the child in time with an alarm clock half to an hour in advance before the time of frequent bedwetting at night, get up and urinate, so that the bell that wakes up the child is presented at the same time as the stimulation of the bladder filling, after a period of training, the conditioned reflex is established, and the child can be awakened by the stimulation of the bladder filling to achieve the purpose of self-control of urination. In addition, children should be encouraged to go to the toilet to urinate on their own, with the aim of making the children urinate clean under a more awake condition.

Bladder function exercise Urge children to drink more water during the day, try to extend the interval between two urinations, promote an increase in urine volume, gradually increase bladder capacity, encourage children to interrupt urination in the middle of urination, count 1 to 10, and then exhaust the urine to improve the control ability of the bladder sphincter.

Drugs commonly used in drug therapy are tricyclic antidepressants, methylchlorophenol fats, anticholinergic drugs, etc.

Can enuresis be cured in children?

The prognosis of children with functional enuresis is generally better, and the process of enuresis improving is manifested by a gradual decrease in the number of enuresis, until it finally disappears completely, and there are very few people who recover suddenly. Children with enuresis with organic diseases mainly need to treat the primary disease, and when these diseases are cured, they may disappear.