Urinary tract infections in a child are a very common cause of hospitalization and only ARVI are second in this dubious superiority.
What exactly causes infections? How are they diagnosed in newborns? Is it possible to prevent their appearance? This will be the subject of today's article.
What is the urinary system
Before talking about diseases, let's recall which organs belong to the human urinary system .
- Let's start with the kidneys - the paired organ responsible for filtering urine.
- The ureters, the tubes through which the filtered urine moves into the bladder (the organ for the accumulation of this fluid), depart from it.
- The urethra is a tube through which urine comes out.
Normally, all of these structures cannot be a medium for the propagation of microorganisms, since they are sterile. But if bacteria from outside gets into it 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 goes into a chronic form is much higher. This is even more dangerous due to 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 structural and functioning of the genitourinary system in children are highlighted.
For example, in infants up to three years old, due to the immaturity of the renal tissue and weak immunity compared with adults, there are almost no isolated infectious manifestations of the same urethritis or cystitis. Urinary tract infections in a child extend to the entire 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, falling into the kidneys, but can also be excited by staphylococci, streptococci, or other types of bacteria.
Helminthic invasions, which reduce the child’s immune background, frequent constipation, dysbiosis, as well as the presence of chronic inflammation on the skin or other foci of infection, are also a serious danger.
Urinary tract infection in the baby: how it manifests
As you already understood, in order to prevent UTI, it is important to first observe the rules of hygiene. So, in newborn girls, the wide urinary canal that is close to the anus is easily infected, therefore, proper (without soap) and regular washing will play an important role in maintaining the health of the future woman.
But if the infection did occur, then the following signs may signal this:
- the baby cries when trying to pee;
- baby's urine smells bad;
- streaks of blood appear in it or it becomes cloudy;
- baby loses appetite;
- temperature rises;
- vomiting occurs.
Each of these symptoms requires a 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 healthy!