Eneuresis

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 800, 19 November 1954, Page 18

Eneuresis

This is the text of a talk on health broadcast recently from ZB, YA and YZ stations of the NZBS by

DR

H. B.

TURBOTT

Deputy-

Director-General of Health aa —

~NEURESIS is the medical name for inability to control the emptying of the bladder, by day or by night, in a child more than three years old. More colloquially, it’s known as wetting the bed. Picking dandelion flowers was supposed to cause it when I was a boy. Nowadays it’s regarded as a delay in developmental progress, the delay being usually caused by some emotional disturbance. A mother should know the average development in control of the bladder. Training in bowel and bladder control should begin very early. Baby should be held out for a couple of minutes after feeds, from the first month say some, from the second month according to others. This routine, a few minutes at | the same times and in the same place, | is kept on with until response develops, and baby obliges, at two to four months. | This is good business for mother, for, . ) | | | : from then on, there are less napkins to wash. Mothers must remember, however, that voluntary control doesn’t begin till 15 to 18 months. You can condition the baby to keep reasonably dry by the holding out business, but nature’s con- trol towards dryness starts at about 11 years. For the next six months the child should be able to warn mother in time. But there’s a terrific urgency at this age. The child just can’t wait, and mother shouldn’t be cross with accidents. From two or two and a half years, he should be able to go to the_ lavatory on his own and climb on the seat. He shouldn’t be wet in the daytime, but will have accidents at night. From 2% to 3 years, if lifted about 10.0 p.m., he’ll be dry in the morning, but the "potty" should be handy at the bedside so that he can get out of bed and attend to his needs. Between 3 and 314 years he should be in control, but there’ll be the occasional slip and wetting of the bed until the fourth year. It helps these busy little folk to be reminded to empty the bladder during the day and at bedtime. They’re so absorbed in their activities they réallyhaven't the time for such mundane things. Now that’s the normal story. But children differ. and these differences must

be allowed for. There must never be punishments for mishaps, or for being too late. Nor must the child see any display of anxiety on mother’s part over mistakes. Further, the child mustn’t see that mother is concerned because he’s slow in developing control. Mother mustn’t try to force him to gain control, by making the child sit for a long time on the chamber, or by pretending to be ashamed of him, or by scolding. Mother has to take a wet bed or wet day clothes as an everyday occurrence, of no special interest to her except to get cleaned up. However, if wetting the bed goes on after the third year, while you don’t let the child sée it, you have to take notice privately. If late development runs in the family in this matter, you'll feel easier, and go on patiently showing no special interest, but expecting development to catch up soon. Wetting the bed into fourth year and later is often a sign of unhappiness, of anxiety, of jealousy of a new baby, or of feeling unloved. It may be from strain at school under an unsympathetic teacher. Or it may be from wrong dealing with the accidents in the developing period-the showing of fuss over lapses, scolding, shaming and so on, that has taken away the child’s confidence in himself, or that has even worked the other way-not made the child try to control himself, because he likes the attention all the fuss and bother brings on him. In dealing with delayed control you restore the child’s confidence, shaken by mishaps, by reassurance that it’s only a matter of time. You are not anxious about it. You remove any emotional cause that exists. Sympathise rather than criticise over mishaps, but without magnifying the problem. The cure is to achieve in the child the mental attitude that he is gaining control-there’s no fault in mistakes and soon he’ll be right-to bed serene and unworried because control is round the corner. It'll soon be so, if this attitude be instilled in the child.