UTI's in young girls

[superflybaby]

My poor 2.2yo DD suffered with a UTI which resulted in emergency doctors visit yesterday. It was such as horrible stressful day I forgot to ask the Doc more about it.

I am stumped as to why she had one. What are the causes? Can you catch it from someone else? Why if once you have a UTI are you more likely to suffer with them in the future? Is diet involved?

There are alot of bugs down there. It's sometimes because little girls wipe the wrong way after they have done a poo, also because of the closeness of the anatomy. Alot of little girls get UTI's. You can't catch it from someone else. The bugs bread better if the child doesn't drink enough aswell because they stay around for longer. It has nothing to do with diet, lots to drink should help to flush the bugs out though. There's no evidence to suggest that she's more likely to have more. A urine samle can help to identify the bug involved but not where it came from.

I'm pleased she's on the mend.

She is in nappies & I, my DP, my Mum & the Nursery staff - all the people that change her nappy - know to clean front to back. But obviously the germs managed to get there somehow.

She drinks alot of water, we take it everywhere with us. Strangely the Doc said not to give her too much water while she had the UTI as it would aggravate the problem in the short term.

Also, I couldn't get a pee sample, after 5-6 hours of her being half naked with me following her around with a pee pot, I gave up, she was in pain and it was stressing her out even more being without her nappy.

The Doc agreed it was a UTI and eventually gave antib's without the pee sample. They said the antib's would only work for a UTI so if the problem continued after 24 hours then it was probably an incorrect diagnosis, but DD has made an almost full recovery already so I am confident that is what it was.

Apparently if a young girl has a UTI more than twice under the age of 3 they have to be referred to a Paediatrician to find out why it is happening. I have been given more pee pots to keep incase it happens again, which the Doc said was likley - which makes me wonder how the hell someone can be prone to them. I'm still none the wiser. I'm 28 & I've never had one!

I had lots of UTIs when I was a child, and at the age of six I had to stay in hospital and have some tests done on my kidneys - thankfully they didn't find anything wrong.

I still find that I have to be pretty careful - if I have even a day where I don't drink lots of water, I start to feel the beginnings of an attack of cystitis, and a few times where I have missed the signs, I have ended up in extreme agony, passing blood and just having to get antibiotics urgently.

Forgot to say, my sister also very susceptible to them, so I guess just a family thing.

SSB - poor you! did they ever find out why you are so susceptible to them?

No. I did get them less often as I got older though (and as I say I can pretty much generally keep them under control now if I make sure I drink lots of water).

I remember having one when I was about 7, but didn't have another one until I was about 17 (honeymooners cystitis ) so it doesn't necessarily mean your dd is susceptible to them.

Superflybaby, her recovery does seem very rapid after onset of Abs.

Did she have a temperature with it? Did her urine smell at all (ABs will make it small funny now)?

If not and alternative possibility (and it is only a possibility) is something called interstitial cystitis. This is where you get the burning associated with cystitis without the infection. It can be triggered by food. All my DDs have it (well DTDs have grown out of it now). In all my DDs cases it is triggered by citrus fruits and sometimes is associated with colds. With the citrus fruit they get burning urine in teh afternoon/evening after having fruit during the day, but are 100% better by morning.

We have erstricted citrus intake and solved the problem.

I only mention it in case you do get a "recurrance" - you can think about what foods may trigger it.

Yes she had a temp & smelly wee. She was suffering late last week but it wasn't until Friday I realised what it might be that was bothering her as i thought it was something to do with toilet awareness and actually got quite annoyed with her . But when it continued into Saturday I knew something was wrong. Now she is on the mend I guess thanks to the antib's.

But she does have a cough/cold.

And she does eat lots & lots of fruit, infact, she ate 2 kiwi fruits in one sitting on Tuesday last week (she was supposed to be sharing the bowl of kiwi with me, but 2 seconds later she had scoffed the lot before I had a chance to eat any).

I wish I had been able to get a pee sample! I'll just have to hope this was a one off.

Thanks for suggestions, will bear in mind.

If she had a temp and smelly wee it prob was an infection then. She probablyl responded so quickly to Abs as she was well onteh road to fighting it herself IYSWIM.

If she regularly has citrus fruit with no problem it won't be that. Also the effects are pretty rapid after eating a fairly short lived.

I only mentioned it as I was surprised at how quickly she responded to Abs, but now I know a bit more it doesn't sound as unlikely to have been a UTI.

Not exactly sure why this is but often a UTI in an infant/toddler can be a seconday infection from another infection eg virus like a cough/cold or flu. I have heard this from many different sources. So you could see it as just 'bad luck' and a one-off. I'm surprised you weren't given a urine collection bag - it has a sticky opening which you stick onto/around the vulva then the bag just gets tucked inside the nappy - foolproof!

DD always suffered from terrible UTI's when she was younger, the worst one being when she was about 6. She is 8 now.

The anatomy of the kidney in some people can mean they have a tendency to reflux urine from bladder to kidney thus being more prone to infections.

They never did do any tests on dd, she has been ok for a couple of years but she does drink an AWFUL lot. Much more than the other children.

I always wondered about it. She was diagnosed with Turners Syndrome at Easter this year, a chromosomal disorder. Since then she has been tested for everything and the last test she had was last week. It was akidney scan as Turners girls can quite often have malformations or indeed only have 1 kidney. Turns out dd has a horseshoe shaped kidney, two kidneys slightly out of place and joined along the top.

This would make her much more prone to kidney infections plus other things. It did explain alot of her issues from when she was younger.

Not that i think for a second oyur dd has anything like this (it is extremely rare) but just to share the kidney anatomy bit.

I always suffer too, usually when pregnant initially. The hormones make everything slack off and become a bit useless alowing the reflux to take place.

She could have had a rush of hormones causing it?

It is probably nothing and she will never get it again. I am sure lots of childrensuffer but as they grow and their anatomy uncurls and stretches out the problem lessens.

Glad she is ok now you know the signs if she does happen to get it again you will be able to spot it a mile off.

Commiserations, superflybaby - I'm glad she's recovered so quickly.

My DD had a kidney infection at 13 months after I failed to realise that smelly wee = UTI. It's strange, I'm normally Paranoid Mother, but so little did it register with me that it might be a serious problem (I've never had a UTI either, so wasn't aware of the connection, and I thought she just needed to drink more) that I didn't even google it or ask here.

Then she had a temperature for 2 days that I thought was because of a cold she also had... so I only went to the doctor's on the third day

In her case the ABs started having an effect after 48 hours (i.e. that's when her temperature went down) but I can imagine that with a UTI that's progressed less far it could be quicker.

I read one interesting article on some research that found a correlation between a course of antibiotics for something else (e.g. an ear infection) and toddlers getting a UTI. The theory was that the ABs kill off the 'good' bacteria around the urethral area that usually manage to neutralise the bad e coli etc. ones before an infection takes hold. In my DD's case, she'd finished ABs for an ear infection two weeks previously. The researchers did suggestthat if it were all down to hygiene, babies and toddlers would all get UTIs the whole time because of their nappies...

However, a major contributing factor in our case seems to have been the fact that DD had a labial adhesion (inner labia got stuck together... happens because they don't have enough oestrogen at that age) so bacteria could get trapped easily. And yes, I'd failed to spot that, too.

DD has a scan in October to see if any damage was done - hopefully not. She had an ultrasound during the infection which was OK.

Anyway, congratulations for acting promptly! I wish they made more of UTIs and their symptoms in baby/toddler books - it doesn't seem to be highlighted much.

My daughter has reflux from bladder to kidney. There are different grades of severity of this some children only have wee refluxong every so often others have it everytime they wee.

If she has another uti I would ask for an ultrasound to check for reflux. They will prob do an ultrasound first and then a mcug which involves a catheter to see if wee goes the wrong way.

It may be worth asking for an ultrasound anyway and uti's can cause kidney damage and an ultrasound would show if it is swollen ect

My dd who is now 3 has had 3 bad uti's In the past 6/9 months that have involved ab. After the second lot she was referred to the hospital to speak with a doctor. I felt like I was being lectured at the hospital that she wasn't drinking enough etc. I left feeling so angry! She was also sent for an ultrasound on her kidneys just to be sure they were working properly, which thankfully they were . I was told by my gp that they take utis in children very serious as if left they can cause damage very quickly so always air on side of caution and will treat straight away.
My dd has been toilet trained for a year now so I just watch over her to make sure she is wiping properly and I usually wash/wipe her bottom at night just to be sure she is clean. I encourage her to drink as much as possible, she has good days and bad days with this!