What to do if your baby girl has urinary tract infection

Women's urethra is naturally shorter and located lower, closer to the anus, making them more susceptible to urinary tract infections than men, but this does not mean that men will not suffer from this disease. A small number of babies will also suffer from urinary tract infections. Their symptoms are different from those of adults, and are mainly high fever and abdominal pain. The following introduces the treatment methods for urinary tract infections in baby girls. Let’s take a look.

1. Treatment of urinary tract infection in female babies

According to clinical observations, the clinical manifestations of urinary tract infection in infants and young children are often atypical. This atypical urinary tract infection often presents with systemic symptoms such as fever and vomiting, or with fever, abdominal pain, and microscopic hematuria as the main symptoms, while local urinary tract symptoms are not obvious. In particular, newborns often present with systemic symptoms such as fever, refusal to feed, pallor, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal distension, slow weight gain, sluggishness, convulsions, jaundice, etc., while urinary system symptoms are rare, so they are easily misdiagnosed as other diseases.

Urinary tract infections in children can be diagnosed by testing urine samples, and then treated with antibacterial drugs. It should be noted that the treatment of urinary tract infection must ensure a sufficient course of treatment. After the clinical symptoms disappear, the child should continue to take the medication as required by the doctor, and can stop taking the medication only after 2 to 3 urine tests are normal, so as to avoid recurrence of the disease and damage to the child's kidney tissue due to incomplete treatment.

In addition to symptomatic treatment with antibiotics, daily care of children with urinary tract infections is also important. If the child has symptoms of high fever, physical cooling or drug cooling can be used; children should be encouraged to drink more water to increase urine output, which is beneficial for flushing the urethra and inhibiting bacterial growth and reproduction; children should have their diapers changed frequently to keep the perineum clean and dry.

2. Causes of urinary tract infection in babies

The cause of urinary tract infection in babies is closely related to their own physiological characteristics:

1. Young babies need to use diapers frequently and cannot control urination and defecation, so the urethra opening is often contaminated by feces. In particular, female babies have shorter urethral openings, and male babies have foreskin of the penis. In addition, the urinary tract immune function and bladder defense mechanism are weak, which makes it easy for the urinary tract to have ascending infection.

2. Congenital malformations of the urinary tract have a higher incidence among all congenital malformations of the body. Malformations of the ureter, bladder, and lower urethra, for example, are prone to urinary tract infections.

3. The baby's body is not yet fully developed and is easily invaded by bacteria, so there is a high chance of using antibiotics. If antibiotics are abused, Gram-negative bacteria, especially Escherichia coli, will easily become dominant, destroying the defense barrier around the urethra, causing bacteria to invade the urinary tract and cause infection.

4. Babies whose mothers have bacteriuria during pregnancy or who lack breastfeeding after birth are also more likely to suffer from urinary tract infections. It is also related to the baby's physique. For example, weak local immune function and bladder defense mechanism can easily cause urinary tract infection.

3. How to care for your baby if he has a urinary tract infection

Fever care. You can use physical cooling (apply cold compress to the baby's forehead, or give the baby a warm water bath). When the baby's temperature reaches 38.5℃, give him antipyretics according to the doctor's instructions.

Let your baby drink plenty of water or other beverages he likes. This is to increase the baby's urine volume, which is beneficial for flushing the urethra, hindering the growth and reproduction of bacteria, and can promote the excretion of bacterial toxins and inflammatory secretions. For most babies, the symptoms of urinary tract infection can be gradually alleviated by drinking more water and urinating more frequently.

Change diapers frequently and keep your baby's perineum clean and dry. When using cloth diapers, they need to be washed in boiling water and then dried, or boiled to sterilize.

When your baby needs to use antibiotics, be sure to take the medicine according to the doctor's instructions. Pay attention to the side effects of the medicine. Oral antibiotics may cause nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, etc. in your baby, so it is best to take it after meals to reduce gastrointestinal side effects. If the side effects are still obvious, you can reduce the dosage or switch to other drugs as prescribed by your doctor. Usually after taking the medicine, the baby's symptoms such as painful urination and urgency will disappear quickly, and urine test results will gradually return to normal. At this time, the most important thing is to continue taking the medicine as prescribed by the doctor. Do not stop taking the medicine without authorization when you see that the baby has no symptoms, so as to avoid repeated attacks and chronic urinary tract infection.