Bed-wetting and Constipation: What I Know Now (and You Should Too)

This is one of those posts that will cause my 5-year-old kid to cringe when he’s a teenager, but I can’t help myself. (Now that I think about it, with a topic like the link between bed-wetting and chronic constipation, I may induce some adults to cringe as well!)

But here’s the deal.  I always thought bed-wetting was kind of normal for a small percentage of kids until age 8 or so. My brother also wet the bed into his school years, which gave me the idea that it was hereditary or something. (More cringes! Sorry, bro!)

Besides, my kid wasn’t wetting the bed every night. It wasn’t upsetting him all that much. He’s a sound sleeper. Why worry?

Then I read an article on Slate.com that changed my whole perspective: The Real Reason Your Kid Wets the Bed.  It’s based on a book by Steve Hodges with Suzanne Schlosberg that goes into all kinds of potty problems, from constipation to urinary tract infections.

The article explains that children who are severely constipated have so much poop backed up in their plumbing that it presses on their bladders, causing bed-wetting and sometimes daytime incontinence. Doctors often miss a diagnosis of chronic constipation because it’s hard to identify without an x-ray.

Well, as luck would have it, my son had already been diagnosed with an x-ray, thanks to a very memorable emergency room visit on the night of Oct. 28, 2011 – which, if you’re a Cardinals fan, you might remember as Game 7 of the World Series. (A VERY bad night to visit the ER. Yes, hospital staff, you should be cringing. Had you offered us some of the celebratory pizza I might have been slightly mollified that you only checked on us during the top of the innings. But I digress.)

We came away with unpleasant memories of an enema and advice to use a stool softener daily, which we’ve been following, although apparently not at a high enough dose to move things along as much as was needed. Hence, his rectum was apparently still stretching out to compensate for the fact that he never fully relieved himself, and his bladder was still bearing the brunt.

Thanks to the article, we’ve added a bit more powder in the orange juice and chocolate milk, and things are moving along well. Best of all, I don’t need to set my alarm for 12:30 a.m. anymore to do that crucial middle-of-the-might toilet run – except on nights when he hasn’t had a bowel movement, and then I feel it’s worth a few minutes of lost sleep to keep him dry.

I had no idea how many other parents were affected by this until I started asking around at all the usual places: the bus stop, moms’ groups, my child’s classroom. Lo and behold, this knowledge is floating around out there, and it’s helping a few kids, but many more parents had the same a-ha reaction as me. Why didn’t our pediatricians ask about this?  I love mine to death, but when he called to follow up on the ER visit, he did not follow up about bed-wetting. When I think of how many loads of laundry we could have saved since October, I am the one cringing.

By Amy De La Hunt, Health Blogger for SmartParenting