What causes children to wet the bed?

It is quite common for children to wet the bed. As parents, you don’t need to worry too much. First of all, you need to clarify the cause. Bedwetting caused by physiological factors can actually be improved as the child grows up. Also, if the child is in a state of fear, sadness, or under great psychological pressure for a long time, he or she may also experience symptoms of bedwetting.

1. Physiological factors

Due to delayed development of bladder function, the ability to safely exercise autonomous control cannot be exercised, resulting in uninhibited contractions during the storage period, making the bladder capacity small, sensitive and compliant; the perception ability during bladder filling and contraction periods is not high, and the stimulation intensity to the cerebral cortex is lower than the sleep-wake threshold; the bladder pressure receptors are dysfunctional and cannot provide warning information, etc., causing the patient to urinate before waking up.

Incomplete urethral closure function, that is, unstable urethra causing enuresis; urethral malformations such as congenital stenosis, etc. About 30-40% of patients with enuresis have a family history. Studies have shown that it is a multi-gene inheritance, and the probability of occurrence varies depending on race and region. Generally, the incidence rate is 77% among children of both parents with enuresis, 44% among children of one parent with enuresis, and only 15% among children of neither parent with enuresis.

2. Mental factors

Bedwetting is associated with mental, psychological and behavioral abnormalities, sudden mental stimulation such as fear, fright, rage, sadness, strong psychological depression and abnormal behavior, confusion, etc., which can all cause enuresis. These factors can become the cause of persistent and intractable enuresis in children as they grow and in adults.

3. Pathological factors

Diseases that cause enuresis come from multiple systems, including organic, inflammatory, metabolic, and traumatic. Common ones include:

Nervous system diseases: epilepsy, encephalopathy, brain tumor, cerebrovascular disease, multiple meningeal sclerosis, spinal cord inflammation and tumor, hemorrhage, meningocele, lumbar spondylolisthesis, etc.

4. Urinary system diseases

Deformities (urethral stenosis, urethral orifice stenosis, hypospadias, urethral valves, bladder neck obstruction, male foreskin, phimosis, etc.), inflammation (nephritis, pyelonephritis, cystitis, urethritis, balanitis), stones, renal function damage, etc.

Other diseases: such as chronic diarrhea, abdominal pain, tracheal and lung diseases that do not heal due to long-term cough; metabolism-related ectopic posterior pituitary, pituitary and nephrogenic diabetes insipidus, diabetes, etc.; blood-related severe anemia, hypercalcemia, hypokalemia, etc.; masturbation and laziness related to bad habits; others include sleep breathing disorders, allergies, etc.