How does a child get urinary tract infections

2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 00:21

Urinary tract infections in a child are a very common cause of hospitalization and second only to SARS in this dubious championship.

What exactly causes infections? How are they diagnosed in newborns? Is it possible to prevent their occurrence? This is what today's article will be devoted to.

What is the urinary system

Before talking about diseases, let's remember which organs belong to the human urinary system.

• Let's start with the kidneys, the paired organ responsible for filtering urine.
• The ureters depart from it - the tubes through which the filtered urine moves to the bladder (the organ for the accumulation of this fluid).
• The urethra is the tube through which urine comes out.

Normally, all these structures cannot be a breeding ground for microorganisms, as they are sterile. But if bacteria get there from the outside, against the background of a weakened immune system, a person can develop diseases - urinary tract infections.

In a child, as in an adult, such pathologies include cystitis, pyelonephritis,urethritis, etc. But in children, the risk that the inflammatory process becomes chronic is much higher. This is all the more dangerous because of the frequent absence of obvious clinical manifestations of the disease.

Urinary tract infection: causes of its occurrence in a child

As the main cause of a large number of these diseases, the features of the structure and functioning of the genitourinary system in children are distinguished.

So, for example, in children under three years old, due to the immaturity of the renal tissue and weak immunity compared to adults, there are almost no isolated infectious manifestations of the same urethritis or cystitis. Urinary tract infections in a child spread throughout the system, affecting the renal pelvis, urethra, and bladder.

The pathology itself is most often caused by Escherichia coli, which, being natural in the flora of the large intestine, becomes a source of inflammation, getting into the kidneys, but can also be excited by staphylococci, streptococci or other types of bacteria.

A helminthic invasion that reduces the child's immune background, frequent constipation, dysbacteriosis, as well as the presence of chronic inflammation on the skin or other foci of infection are also a considerable danger.

Urinary tract infection in infants: how it manifests

As you already understood, in order to prevent UTIs, it is important, first of all, to follow the rules of hygiene. So, in newborn girls, close to the anus, a widethe urinary canal is easily infected, so proper (without soap) and regular washing plays an important role in maintaining the he alth of the future woman.

But if infection does occur, then the following signs may signal this:

• baby crying when trying to pee;
• baby's urine smells bad;
• blood streaks or becomes cloudy;
• baby loses appetite;
• temperature rising;
• vomit occurs.

Each of these symptoms requires a visit to the pediatrician and a thorough examination of the newborn. Untreated urinary tract infections in a child often lead to serious pathologies of the kidneys and other organs at an older age.

Be he althy!