Bed Wetting Concerns

Bed wetting is simply wetting the bed while you are asleep in your bed. The scientific name for bed wetting is nocturnal enuresis or sometimes it is simply called enuresis. Some people also refer to it as sleep wetting. Bed wetting is very common among children, boys more so than girls. It is believed that approximately five to seven million children experience this problem. Doctors classify bed wetters as girls who are older than four years and boys who are over five years who chronically wet their beds during sleep. The tendency to wet the bed however does decrease as a child gets older.

Studies have shown that approximately ten percent of six-year-old youngsters wet their beds routinely while this number decreases to three percent for fourteen year olds. It is rare but it does happen that bed wetting contuse to plague both older teenagers and even adults. This problem can be very minor to serious and cause a great deal of distress and embarrassment for the person involved.

There are believed to be a number of causes for primary nocturnal enuresis. There appears to be a genetic link when it comes to bed wetting. If a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle had the same problem as a child then you are more likely to develop the problem. Many children have very deep sleeping patterns and don’t awaken when their bladder relays the message to the brain that it needs to be emptied. Some children have a central nervous system that develops slower than normal and therefore interferes with bladder functions. Some children simply have a smaller than average bladder that requires that it be emptied more often than most people’s. A bladder infection that has gone undiagnosed and untreated can also be the cause of primary nocturnal bed wetting, as can abnormalities that exist in the urethra in males and females and for boys it can sometimes be problems with their urethral valves. Children who suffer from chronic allergies, attention deficit disorder (ADD) or a variety of learning disabilities appear to have a higher incidence of bed wetting problems than do other children.

Secondary nocturnal enuresis is most often related to a build up of stress that is occurring in a child’s life at any given time. Most often once the source of stress has passed in the child’s life, the bed-wetting then becomes a thing of the past. The three most common stress triggers for secondary bed wetting in children include starting school for the first time, being hospitalized or seeing a parent who must stay in the hospital for a few days and the birth of a new brother or sister. Although these events can be exciting many children are also frightened and therefore develop secondary problems as a result, thus the name, secondary nocturnal bed wetting. Problems that exist in a family can also trigger bed wetting. These problems might include abuse, neglect, and constant fighting between parents, divorce, alcoholism and financial worries.

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