The Deep Sleeper and BedWetting Connection

Children who are five or six years old and are persistent bed wetters have long been considered by the medical community to suffer from a sleep disorder. Recent studies seem to show that this is not the case and that typically the children are deep sleepers who fail to wake up when the message is sent from the brain that the bladder needs to be emptied.

Controlled laboratory studies indicate that deep sleeping plays a role in bed-wetting, but is not the primary cause. Studies on children at Albert Einstein College of Medicine recorded their electroencephalography (EEG) patterns. This is a monitoring of the brains electrical activity during sleep. Children suffering from a variety of sleep disorders were recorded by the EEG as having abnormal electrical patterns. The children who suffered just from enuresis did not display abnormal brain activity during sleep, supporting the notion that sleep disorders and bed wetting are not linked, though not waking when the bladder is full is a deviation from the norm.

Doctors do not know exactly what causes enuresis, though complete bladder control is known to be a gradual process that takes time with no definitive age of mastery for all children. Some children develop nighttime mastery at a very early age while others take considerably more time. Daytime bladder control is typically achieved first while children are awake and alert, able to immediately respond to a full bladder.

Many aspects of the body must work together in regulating bladder function and urine control including muscles, nerves, brain and spinal chord. The bladder sends a message to the brain to wake up when the bladder is full. A deep sleeper does not respond to the brain's message and attempts to contain the urine in the bladder until the person awakes. Typically, where bed-wetting is involved, the body is not working well enough coordinated yet to control the urine.

Some children have a smaller than average bladder which has not matured enough to make nighttime bladder control happen regularly. Other children create more urine than average in which case the bladder is unable to contain it through the night. Physical problems such as diabetes and urinary tract infections can also contribute to enuresis.

Studies have shown there may be a genetic link to bed-wetting. The National Kidney Foundation reports that a child with one parent that was a bed wetter has a 4 in 10 chance of becoming one them self. Having both parents who were bed wetters raises it to a 7 in 10 chance of being a bed wetter.

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For more enuresis-related articles, visit the bedwetting section of http://www.OurGoodHealth.org.