What are the symptoms of bacterial infection in children?

Urinary tract infections are more common in adult women, so many parents can't believe it can happen to their children, but doctors say that urinary tract infections are a common disease in children. Urinary tract infection in infants is due to the body's poor antibacterial ability, frequent use of diapers, and the urethral opening is often contaminated by feces, which can easily cause infection. So, what do we need to pay attention to and how to treat it?

Causes of urinary tract infection in children:

Some parents, for the sake of convenience, let their children sit around in open-crotch pants, or do not change their diapers for a long time after their children have a bowel movement, or simply wipe their feces without cleaning it, etc. These are common causes of the disease.

Especially for baby girls, since their urethra is shorter than that of baby boys, the urethral opening is extremely susceptible to contamination by bacteria, especially E. coli. The bacteria go back up along the urethra and enter the bladder, ureters, kidneys and other parts, so they are more susceptible to infection.

Every summer is the peak season for urinary tract infections. Because the weather is hot in summer, some children drink less water and urinate less. Some children, especially girls, like to go swimming, which can easily cause ascending infection of some special pathogens.

When some kindergarten children suffer from intestinal pinworm infection, the pinworms can crawl out at night and lay eggs around the anus, causing itching in the perineum and also leading to urinary tract infection. In some children, due to diseases such as pneumonia, impetigo, sepsis, etc., bacteria can spread through the blood and cause urinary tract infections.

Experts emphasize that if children have repeated urinary tract infections, they should go to the hospital for examination to rule out congenital urinary tract malformations or urinary tract obstruction.

According to statistics, 25% to 50% of children with recurrent urinary tract infections have congenital urinary tract malformations or urinary tract obstruction. Urinary reflux is also a common cause of recurrent urinary tract infections.

symptom

Most infants and young children have atypical symptoms after acute urinary tract infection, which are difficult to detect, so parents need to observe more. It usually manifests as listlessness, sudden high fever, poor appetite, vomiting, diarrhea, restless sleep, crying when urinating, and breastfeeding infants may have weak sucking or refuse to suckle. If infants and young children show the above symptoms, be alert to urinary tract infection.

Symptoms of a UTI are usually more obvious in older children. Burning sensation in the urethra when urinating, frequent urination, pain in the lower back or abdomen, bed-wetting, and blood in the urine (the urine may be red, pink, or dark red).

It is worth mentioning that some parents, when treating their children, think that the disease is cured once the child’s symptoms disappear, and take a perfunctory attitude towards the doctor’s advice or treatment plan. This often brings adverse consequences, because a sufficient course of treatment is an important condition to ensure efficacy.

Therefore, after the clinical symptoms disappear and the urine test results are normal, you should still take the medication as prescribed by the doctor. The disease is considered cured only after 2 to 3 urine tests return normal. Because incomplete treatment of urinary tract infection may turn from acute to chronic process, further development may damage the child's kidney tissue.

Nursing

Infants: To prevent urinary tract infections in infants, special attention should be paid to the cleanliness of the perineum. For babies over one year old, in addition to washing and changing diapers frequently, and cleaning the baby's butt after each urination and defecation, you should also pay attention to the cleaning method, that is, clean the vulva from front to back, and then clean the anus. Baby girls should pay more attention to this.

When cleaning a boy's vulva, be sure to turn back the foreskin of the penis and wash away the dirt hidden inside. Whether it is a boy or a girl, they should wear closed-crotch pants as early as possible. Do not let young children sit around in open-crotch pants. It is best to let children wear underwear from an early age to reduce the chance of infection.

Children: Let them drink plenty of water on a regular basis. They should urinate at least once every 4 hours, before each meal and before going to bed. Take a bath or shower every day, avoid using irritants such as soap or foam bath to clean the urethra, and dry thoroughly after bathing.

After swimming in the summer, girls, especially, should urinate as soon as possible and rinse the vulva clean. If a boy has problems such as foreskin that is too long, phimosis, or hypospadias, he needs surgical treatment to reduce the chance of urethral infection.

The editor reminds that once parents find that their children have symptoms of urinary tract infection, they should take the children to the hospital as soon as possible. The doctor will collect urine samples from the child for testing. Once a urinary tract infection is confirmed, the child should drink more boiled water to increase urine volume and flush the urinary tract. At the same time, antibacterial drugs should be used under the guidance of a doctor.