Breastfeeding: answering the bedwetting dilemma

Formula feeding your baby can meet the twin needs of convenience for returning moms. But what about the long-term consequences? Your baby’s lifetime health risks, your family’s health care expenses, and an increased risk of prolonged bed-wetting may be included in the price.

When is enuresis “normal” and when does it enter the abnormal and chronic segment? Responding to this before you are in a knot of anxiety trying to stop wetting means it may be too late. You may have missed the simplest “natural” solution available to you at the time of your baby’s birth, namely breast milk.

What happened to old-fashioned breastfeeding?

Surprisingly, only about 42% of moms leave the hospital after delivery and exclusively breastfeed their baby. Reasons? Social customs that combine with the training of physicians and the emergence of a market for baby formula manufacturers have upended baby care practices. Add to this trend the initial difficulty new moms experience in getting breast milk flowing, and you’ve got the perfect combination of factors.

The probable “link” between breastfeeding and nocturnal enuresis.

There is no simple cure. Hard science remains open as to a demonstrable direct cause and effect relationship, however some trend numbers seem to point to some practical realities. In a 2006 study, 55% of those who wet the bed were children between the ages of 5 and 13 who were fed formulated baby formula. In the “control” panel of the research, more than 80% of the children who started life with mother’s milk did not wet the bed after 5 years.

Bedwetting at night in older children: causes and future problems.

Even healthy children can develop bedwetting, or bedwetting, in what appears to be a chronic pattern, the absence of medical problems or psychological triggers. Some behavioral scientists theorize that this tendency is based on family genes and is therefore hereditary in nature. Transcendence? The future projection side of the theory suggests that nocturnal enuresis involves delayed neurological development in the girl or boy. Sense? Parents could be getting a clue about future cognitive and behavioral delays or vulnerabilities in their child, such as an amplified susceptibility to peer pressure, early drug experimentation, etc.

What Makes Mom’s Milk So Amazing?

New moms naturally produce the most complete and life-enhancing food for babies. Hunger at this time is immediately satisfied while breast milk confers long-term health benefits. Breastfed babies have higher IQs and show better visual skills, two clear markers of neurodevelopment. Breast milk also offers a powerful blend of long-chain proteins and fats, in a mix that changes during the first 5 months, to provide a powerful boost to your baby’s immune system that will be a lifelong positive. Breastfeeding babies now appear to directly boost babies’ immune systems, reducing the risk of infection and offering protection against diabetes and adult obesity.

Conclusion on wetting and breastfeeding. All the more contemporary research shows that moms should aim to exclusively breastfeed for up to 6 months, and this is not solely for technical health reasons, but also because of the deep psychological bond and relaxing experience that a breastfeeding baby creates. Trained professional lactation consultants or lactation specialists are available in many hospitals to help guide new moms.

In the early stage of toddler bedwetting, the normal types of training will work in most cases, along with a bedwetting pad or even one of the newer alarm devices that wake up and train the urinating child. Bedwetting in an older child can be challenging, especially when the bedwetting pattern is deeply ingrained and is of course compounded by the practical fact that an older child will produce more urine for cleanings.

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