CONSTIPATION in children
CONSTIPATION IS A COMMON PROBLEM IN CHILDREN, WITH RECENT RESEARCH REVEALING THAT ABOUT ONE IN THREE CHILDREN EXPERIENCE CONSTIPATION AT SOME POINT IN THEIR CHILDHOOD
By Continence.org.au
C
ontinence nurse advisor with the National Continence Helpline (1800 33 00 66) and maternal and childcare nurse Janine Armocida said there were no hard and fast rules about how often a child should open their bowels, with much variation in the firmness and frequency of bowel movements in children.
“Some go three times a day and others three times a week. Whatever the frequency, your child’s stool should come out easily and look like a smooth sausage. Check out the Bristol Stool Chart,” Ms Armocida said. She said that issues with constipation could start as early as toilet training time, and that problems could also start after a child experienced a particularly painful bowel movement.
Some signs that suggest your child is constipated: Ms Armocida said there were some key signs parents should look out for. The child: resists pooing by adopting postures such as squatting, crossing their legs or refusing to sit on the toilet, has intermittent stomach cramps, loses their appetite, becomes irritable, or develops small tears of the skin at the anus as the result of straining to pass a large stool. Anal fissures cause bleeding and pain when passing a stool.
How are constipation and incontinence linked? When a child comes to see a continence nurse for day or night time wetting, constipation is one of the first things they are checked for, Ms Armocida said. “This is because a constantly full bowel puts pressure on the bladder, reducing its capacity to fill and causing other bladder issues.” Somewhat counterintuitively, long-term constipation was one of the major causes of faecal incontinence (soiling), which affects one in 40 children (SR Ali, 2011), Ms Armocida said. “This is because hard, dry faeces can cause a blockage, resulting in watery faeces forcing its way around the blockage without the child knowing. Sometimes mistaken for diarrhoea, this is actually constipation with overflow,” she said.
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Peninsula Kids – Spring 2017