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Just Like Mom and Dad
Let Your Bedwetting Child Know He's Not Alone
By Teri Brown
Parents who suffered from nighttime enuresis know how devastating the problem can be. When their child shows signs of having the same issues, parents are often in a quandary – will their child benefit from knowing they went through the same thing? Can it help build a sense of trust and normalcy for the child?
Dr. Lyle Danuloff, a clinical psychologist on staff at the Enuresis Treatment Center in Farmington Hills, Mich., agrees with the National Kidney Foundation findings that say if both parents were bedwetters, a child/teen has a seven in 10 chance of wetting the bed.
"At the Enuresis Treatment Center we know, after 33 years of experience, 99 percent of our bedwetting cases stem from the root cause: an inherited deep-sleep disorder," Dr. Danuloff says. "The brain sleeps so deeply that when signaled by the bladder that it's full, the brain cannot respond. The bladder empties involuntarily, and, as a result, symptoms begin to develop, such as an underdeveloped bladder capacity and a weak and desensitized sphincter muscle."
So while the scientific evidence hasn't found that bedwetting is genetic, sleep patterns and functional bladder capacity could certainly be inherited physiologic characteristics.
Dr. Danuloff encourages parents to tell their children they understand because they also experienced the same problem.
