Approaches to bedwetting: in with the old

Article Outline

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Within the spectrum of child health concerns, bedwetting probably does not rank high in importance among pediatricians. For parents and children, however, this can become a major source of psychological distress and family discord. Not surprisingly, the mainstays of the western medical approach to bedwetting have been pharmacologic (eg, desmopressin) and technologic (eg, alarms).

Behavioral interventions for bedwetting children are occasionally mentioned, but rarely studied with any precision. This issue of The Journal contains a practical study of a simple intervention, from a group in the Netherlands. The group demonstrated success from the simple expedient of taking a child from bed about 2 hours after falling asleep and placing him or her on the toilet to urinate. Although this intervention seems almost common sense, it really has never been studied as carefully as in this report.

The report is placed into context in an accompanying editorial by Jackson. This brief editorial succinctly summarizes current “best practice” in this field. The last paragraph of Jackson's editorial may be the best description of the appropriate “workup” and initial therapy for children with nocturnal enuresis ever published.