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Bed Wetting: it just won’t stop!

Bed wetting can be an extremely frustrating problem to have, for kids and their parents. Why does it happen? What might be causing it? How can physio help?

Pediatric pelvic health physiotherapy is an integral part of the care team for children that are experiencing persistent bed wetting aka nocturnal enuresis. Many children go through daytime potty learning, and just seem to never really quite get the night-time down pat. For others, they breeze through daytime and night-time dryness, and then at some point the night-time problems start and just get worse over time. If you are struggling with potty learning check out our blog.

So why does bed wetting happen?

Evaluating movement and coordination is critical in identifying underlying reasons for bed wetting

Bed wetting can in some instances simply be a result of a deep sleeper and an immature bladder. These are kids that will eventually just grow out of it. Many children, however, fit into the “underlying contributing factors” category. Our ability to be continent (hold our urine) at night can be impacted by a number of factors. Here we will go through two main issues:

  1. Constipation
  2. Daytime urinary dysfunction

Constipation

Often times we think of constipation as children going days on end without bowel movements, having extreme difficulty evacuating the bowel, tears, and an overall dramatic experience (which definitely may be the case). BUT some of the time constipation looks like multiple bowel movements a day, quick trips to the washroom, and stool being evacuated without having an actual sensation of the “I need to poop”

The question is how does constipation impact bed wetting? During appointments we take the time to sit down and draw out the relationship (clients get signed copies to take home because the artistic talent is top notch!) – but imagine that the bladder is a balloon, and the abdomen is like a Tupperware container. If the bowel is a long skinny balloon that also fits into the container there is only a certain amount of space in there. When we start to stuff the bowel with some extra stool, it will take up more space in the container. This will leave less space for the bladder, and it will get squished before it can send a signal of “I’m full go pee!” resulting in bed wetting. Biggest take away?

Really the child has no signal that they need to go!

Discussing bed wetting can be challenging especially as a child ages, but making children comfortable and confident is the goal

Daytime Urinary Dysfunction

When a parent comes with their child for an appointment and the only reason is “bed wetting” there is a good chance that it isn’t JUST bed wetting. In order for the problem to be strictly nocturnal enuresis, it needs to be present in the absence of any daytime abnormalities. Many children that come in have several daytime issues going on, and often the parents don’t even realize it! Here are a few things that often come up during discussions with children:

  • decreased urinary frequency during the day (<4x/day)
  • increased urinary frequency during the day (>7x/day)
  • leaking urine during the day
  • altered sensation to void (not sensing the urge to go, or having the urge and being unable to go)
  • voiding difficulties (feeling the urge to go and not being able to)

We struggle especially with school aged children as we often don’t know what their bathroom habits are! Our society tends to significantly limit our bathroom involvement with our kids after they have potty learned, even though they may need parent support until age 5 to ensure they are building positive bowel and bladder hygiene routines!

 

If you have a child that is holding their bladder all day, you can imagine that might impact night-time dryness. If they are having any sort of daytime dysfunction, the night-time wetting will have difficulty resolving independently, since our kids are sleeping (hopefully!) at night, the greatest impact we can have on bed wetting is by working on the daytime dysfunction and/or constipation!

 

Ultimately, bed-wetting in many instances is not something that the child is wanting to do or has control over (despite what many of our friends and relatives will tell us). If you have a child that is wetting at night at any age, it may be worth it to think about some of these factors. When in doubt, give us a shout!

 

Book an assessment for your child!

Haylie has been practicing pelvic health and focused in prenatal and post-partum care since graduating from the U of S MPT program in 2011. She officially added to her practice pediatric pelvic floor therapy in 2017. Haylie has been advocating for treatment for women, ensuring appropriate and effective care throughout pregnancy and post-partum, and helping all expecting and post-partum moms ultimately brought her to open her family-friendly clinic since opening in 2014. She now adds to this education and treatment provision her knowledge and experience in pediatric pelvic health providing workshops and presentations in addition to assessment and treatment. At Warman Physio clients are encouraged to bring their infants and children to treatment. Haylie was recognized as YWCA Women of Distinction for Health & Wellness in 2017, the ABEX Young Entrepreneur Award Recipient in 2018, and a finalist in the 2019 SABEX and WMBEXA Awards.
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What is Incontinence and How Physio can Help

Many people are aware that physiotherapy can help with injuries from sports or car accidents, but did you know there is physio that can help with your bladder problems? Not just any physiotherapist can assist you with your leaky bladder, we need to take a little bit of extra training to become a Pelvic Health Physiotherapist (PHPT). Depending on the courses that have been taken, PHPT can treat a variety of pelvic floor disorders including urinary incontinence.

There are a few different types of incontinence that pelvic health physiotherapy can address including stress urinary incontinence (leaking with cough and sneeze), urge urinary incontinence (leaking when rushing to the washroom), mixed urinary incontinence (a mix of stress and urge) and functional urinary incontinence (leaking due to other limitations).

In years past incontinence was an issue associated with an elderly woman who had likely had children at some point, and now we recognize that it is an issue not only in women, but men and children as well!

In some instances the leaking starts as just a small amount and only with certain activities, and in some instances it is a large amount and seeming to be all the time!

Stress Urinary IncontinenceLaughter is one of the frequent causes of stress incontinence

Usually occurs when intraabdominal pressures exceed the ability of our internal and external urethral sphincters to counteract these pressures on the bladder. This will happen most often during laughing, sneezing, coughing, lifting, or yelling. The muscles that control keeping urine in while the pressure around the bladder increases is our external urethral sphincters, a part of our pelvic floor musculature and they are under our control. When there is weakness in these muscle, possibly a problem with timing of the contraction of these muscles, or ‘bearing down’ vs ‘lifting up’, then some leakage can occur. Pelvic floor physical therapy can help by teaching techniques and strategies to get the best recruitment of the pelvic floor muscles and timing of the contractions with these increases in intraabdominal pressure.

 

Urge Urinary Incontinence

Developing urge incontinence on the way home or upon arrival is a common "key in the door" presentation

This leaking is associated with the increased urge to void without being able to make it to the bathroom in time. This may start with “photo finishes” and just making it to the washroom in time, to having the entire bladder empty at the first urge to void. Often a higher toned pelvic floor and/or overactive bladder may be the cause.  Pelvic floor physical therapy can help by teaching strategies for retraining of the bladder reflex responsible for the urge to urinate or by helping to decrease a higher toned pelvic floor with manual therapy techniques to the lumbosacral spine or pelvic floor and breathing/relaxation exercises.

 

Mixed Incontinence

As it sounds, this is usually a combination of the first two: stress and urge urinary incontinence. Depending on what the assessment finds, various techniques and strategies can be utilized by the pelvic floor physiotherapist to help address the issues. Each individual will get their own unique program no matter what type of issue they are coming in with, but this type in particular can have some very unique features for each client!

 

Functional & Overflow Incontinence

Generally will have leaking occur when there are other factors at play. Mobility or cognitive issues that prevent a person from making it to the bathroom in time are the biggest culprits  here. Physical therapists can help address mobility issues and provide manual therapy, teach exercises to help increase mobility, strength, balance as well as recommend certain mobility aids that can assist the client to reduce incontinence secondary to functional limitations. Often associated with the more elderly client, this can also affect younger individuals as well.

Photo by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash - demonstrating one reason for functional incontinence (mobility issues)

Urinary incontinence can also be due to overflow incontinence.  The hallmark symptoms of this type of incontinence are frequent leakage of urine without the urge to void, or the inability to have normal volumes of urine. This is when the bladder remains full due to its inability to empty, which causes the urine to leak out when the bladder capacity is overfilled.  This type of incontinence is not a form that physical therapy typically addresses and NEEDS to be medically investigated first as there are a variety of medical reasons that may be causing this type of incontinence!

 

We have talked about what to expect in a pelvic health appointment before, and with these appointments as with all our assessments we get a detailed subjective history, followed by a scan exam of the low back, as well as an internal assessment of the pelvic floor is usually required in order to fully appreciate what is causing the urinary incontinence. This will help the therapist to formulate a treatment plan that will be individual and specific to each person being assessed. If someone is experiencing urinary incontinence and wishing to have this addressed by a pelvic health physiotherapist, no physician referral is required.

 

Have you been struggling with urine leakage? Not sure if your symptoms could be part of a pelvic health issue? Please feel free to contact us and we will help chat you through what you are experiencing as best we can.

Don’t delay start your road to recovery today in Warman or Saskatoon!

Maja Stroh is a physiotherapist that has a particular interest in pelvic health and perinatal care. She graduated from the U of S MPT program in 2009 and has been working with pelvic health populations since 2013. Maja’s interest in helping her clients and spending quality time with her family has brought her to Warman Physio where she will be providing services in the Warman location.

 

 

 

 

References:

 

The Canadian Continence Foundation <www.canadiancontinence.ca>

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