by Adisyn Lee

Created on: August 31, 2008   Last Updated: August 01, 2009

It was during a long hospitalization for a severe kidney infection in which my daughter, age two years at the time, was finally diagnosed with urinary reflux. As a parent of an ill child it is difficult to not feel helpless or in some way to blame for the condition in which your child suffers. I too began to feel as though it were in some way my fault that my child was sick. I felt a loss of control and found that the only way that I could gain this back was to begin to make myself knowledgeable about her condition and its treatment.

First, it is important to understand the urinary tract. The urinary tract is made up of the kidneys, the tubes leading from the kidneys to the bladder called the ureters, the bladder, and finally the tube leading from the bladder called the urethra. A urinary tract infection is one that affects one or many parts of this system. In children urinary tract infections can be quite common and may not be a sign of an underlying condition. Most commonly found in young girls due to the length of the urethra. In girls bacteria can easily find its way into the bladder from long bubble baths and from back to front wiping with potty training. It is not the infrequent urinary tract infections that are a cause of concern for clinicians; it is the frequent chronic urinary tract infections that are a cause for alarm.

When a child with urinary reflux voids urine is swept up into the ureters and then flows back into the empty bladder, it then acts as a reservoir for bacterial growth until the next void. This in turn increases the risk for infection. This is caused by either a congenital abnormality or an acquired condition, such as constipation. Diagnosing a child with reflux is accomplished primarily with radiological studies such as ultrasounds and voiding cystourethrograms or VCUGs. The VCUG is the definitive test for it will actually show to what degree the reflux is on a scale of one to five. First, a catheter is placed into the bladder through the urethra. As you can imagine this is quite scary for both the parent and the child, so the parent is often allowed to remain during the procedure. A contrast dye is then placed into the bladder through the catheter. During this process several x-ray films are taken of the urinary tract to see if there are any abnormalities. Finally, the catheter is removed and the child is instructed to urinate, mind you while they remain on the table. This is very hard for the potty training child because they

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