UTI In 8 Month Old

have her tested for diabetes...frequently peeing is one of the signs. tiredness, crabby after eating. drinking lots.. J.

Hi M.,

There wouldn't be an ultrasound needed for diabetes. They are probably checking her kidney function. I would try not to worry about it at this point and trust that it's not an emergency if they didn't want you to come in that second.

Good luck!

my daughter is 4 months old, diagnosed with a uti at 3 months. uti's are really common in girls (shorter urethra), but can be of concern in little ones. most of the time, the only symptom is high fever.

as standard operating procedure, after uti is diagnosed, they do imaging studies. we had ours done a couple of weeks ago. it's not *that* awful (or at least dd was amazingly calm), but they do ultrasound of the kidneys & bladder plus a dye test where they catheterize your child & fill the bladder with a contrast solution to see if the fluid refluxes into the kidney.

our daughter has grade 2 kidney reflux - grade one is the mildest, 5 is the worst - so her urine moves back into the tubes connecting the bladder to the kidneys. it's likely she was just born like that, but the good news is that she should outgrow it by the time she's in school... or sooner. no surgeries should be needed - our ped said that most of the time surgery is only needed in grade 5 cases.

anyway - it wasn't as terrifying as i'd originally thought, but the downside is that standard treatment is preventative antibiotics. if baby gets a uti, the infection could reflux into the kidneys causing kidney infection & scarring... not good. so, the bummer is that our little is on daily antibiotics for the next year until her next round of imaging studies to see if the reflux has lessened or not.

really, it's upsetting, but it's one of those fixable things. dd is happy, healthy otherwise & a joy to be around. it's not the end of the world, and it's not life threatening. as our pediatrician said, it's just another bump in the road. :)

good luck! if you have any other questions or anything, you can always send me a private message. take care of you, and try not to worry yourself crazy!

J.
mom to chase (4) and paige (4 months)

frequent urination is a sign of diabetes but I don't know. Just remember you need to be strong for your babies and you can be. they rely on you and look to you for your reaction to see how bad things actually are. be strong

My daughter had horrible UTI's when she was a baby also. I used cloth diapers and the ammonia smell was the first clue that she had one. Make sure she isn't getting bubble baths and maybe even take her in the shower with you to give her baths so she isn't sitting in the soapy water. Use bottled water in case there was something in the tap water that is irratating her bladder and give lots of water along with cranberry juice.

As far as the tests go, talk it over with your doctor when you see him. It might be hard to go through the tests, but you should to rule out any serious problems like diabites and kidney diseases. In my daughter's case, it was the tap water and the cloth diapers, once we moved to bottled water for her and disposible diapers, it cleared up and she didn't have trouble again until she got into school and was afraid to tell the teachers she needed to use the restroom. They had scheduled bathroom breaks but she needed more and they would put the kids names on the board when they asked to go at a unscheduled time. I got really mad when I found that out and told them she was to go anytime she needed and that the practice of punishing for it will cause unnessessary stress on the kids.

Anyway, I will say a prayer for you and that all will be fine. Let us know what you find out, please.

Hi M.! I'm so sorry you are going through all of this! Did the Dr. seem concerned about diabetes? There are other factors than just frequent urination. It's very easy to test for diabetes, I would think they would have found out already based on the urine test they already did. So, hold on to hope!
My daughter is 21 months and she was diagnosed with diabetes almost 2 months ago. She wet through her clothes every night but she also cried for water all the time.
I will pray that she does not have diabetes and that whatever it is can be resolved quickly and without pain!
Let us know what happens and I pray that you have great peace!

Hey, M.! I don't know much about the kidney issues, but I do know that a UTI in a child younger than 1 can be a sign of VCR (vesicoureteral reflux or urine reflux). It's actually very common and sometimes tends to be genetic (this could be what your hubby's problem was when he was younger as I've heard it's more prevalent in boys). It's basically just a slight birth defect...the ureters (tubes from kidney to bladder) are in a weaker part of the bladder than is normal and the valves in those tubes that are meant to keep urine from flowing back to the kidneys don't do their job properly. So when the bladder gets full, the urine flows back. This prevents the child from completely emptying the bladder when urinating, which is what leads to the bladder infections.

The imaging and testing that they will do on your daughter isn't all that bad either. They'll most likely take a look at her kidneys with an ultrasound of her tummy to be sure that there is no visible sign of damage to the kidneys. They may also choose to do a VCUG, which consists of putting dye into your child's bladder (through a catheter) and watching to see if the dye travels up out of the bladder. It's not the most pleasant thing to have done, but it's not the worst either.

If urine reflux is the problem, then they'll have your daughter come back once a year to redo the tests to see if it's getting better. Most kids outgrow it by the time they are 5 or 6 years old. My daughter has VCR (grade level 4 on one side and grade level 2 on the other-scale of 1-5) and we just have to give her daily antibiotics to prevent infections. She is otherwise completely healthy and happy and has had no problems at all. My four older sisters and I had some degree of it when we were younger, but things like that weren't diagnosed as much back then. And nearly all of my 17 nieces and nephews have had VCR to some extent. Try to relax until the tests are done. I hope everything turns out well for your daughter and if you do find out she has VCR and have additional questions, feel free to message me!

Hello M.,
I have read all of the previous comments so I won't go into to it in huge detail, the basics of it are that when there is kidney damage (the Dr.'s call it scarring) from reflux (urine backing up into the kidneys) the kidneys produce more urine. This condition is a genetic birth defect that does get passed from parent to child. If this this what it turns out to be then they will also be testing your older daughter too. It is very common that this is discovered at potty training time.

Because the urine goes back up into the kidneys and it is not a "one way street" anymore these kids have a higher incidence of bladder infections. This is how we found out about my son's case. He was only 12 days old and got a bladder infection with a particularly bad bacteria. Not to scare you, but the truth is that he almost died. He ended up with toxic shock syndrome from this and his whole body started shutting down, he had "less than a 4% chance of living" according to the specialists. It all started with a fever, so maybe that is why they asked about that.

My son is now 7 and doing fine. He was on 3 years of daily antibiotics to hold off any potential infections. Yearly they did the VCUG testing as described in other comments. These I found were let's just say not fun. My son was very traumatized and has an aversion to going in for them now. To start with he had a grade 3 on one side and later on we found out it was also a grade 2 on the other after it started getting better on the first side. This is common I am told. When he was @3.5 years old he under went a procedure called bilateral deflux injections.

This means that on both sides of the bladder where the ureters (tubes connect from the kidneys to the bladder) inserted they injected sugar granuals. This shifts the angle at which the ureters insert and significantly if not "fixes" the problem with reflux. Over time the sugar absorbs, but is replaced with scar tissue to make things permanent.

We went in several times for ultrasounds to be sure those scars were there and big enough to do the job. Years ago the would have a big incision and they would detach and reattach these tubes onto the bladder, which is a MUCH bigger deal. In the end my son no longer requires antibiotic daily and has never again had a UTI. His one kidney is scarred quite badly and is now about half the size of the other. They say that he will be at risk for high blood pressure as he gets older because of the kidney damage. He is not allowed to play contact sports (football and hockey) because it may damage his one good kidney. Other than that he is an awesome normal kid.

I hope I didn't scare you, but my intention was to share my situation so that you can be well informed and have good questions to ask when you do go to the DR's. Good luck and I hope this is not the case for your little one.

PS Dr Hossein Aliabadi Is an AMAZING pediatric urology surgeon you couldn't ask for anyone better. He is nationally known and the most gentle charismatic guy who is fantastic with kids bedside manner.

Reflux, I had it and when my daughter was 12 weeks she was diagnosed with it too(it can be genetic!). If they do an ultrasound they will prob. do the dye test too, which is horrible for you. It is one parent allowed and let me tell you when she has to be retested at 18 mos. it will be my dh going in, I was a basketcase!

The good news is they usually outgrow it, I did. My dd is on an antibiotic daily for prevention. She is 8 mos. now and is doing well!

Oh and She didn't have a fever or show any signs of being sick, but you could smell urine the second you walked in her door! Very strange for a 3 mos old! You could try the night time diapers too.

Good Luck with everything and try not to get too upset yet! It is not that uncommon!

Hi M.,
It sounds like they're trying to check her kidneys. I would try not to get too upset yet since you can't get any answers yet. When you meet with your doc discuss the procedures in detail...you should both be there because it helps having 2 sets of ears. If DH can't be there take your mom, sis, friend...
If they want to start doing invasive tests ask (insist) on meeting with a pediatric urologist first. DO NOT just go along with the doc. When our son was 4 he began having problems thinking he had to go potty alot but only a few dribbles would come out most of the time. we did the urine tests to rule out UTI's and all but that was not the problem. The doc ordered an ultra sound of the kidney's. That was a little scary for him but didn't hurt at all and he thought it was cool to see his insides (obviously Madelyn won't understand). The urgent care NP said her son had a stricture (sp) at a young age...I think the flow is somehow restricted...
The regular doc ordered a catheterization after the ultrasound showed nothing. We asked about a referral but didn't push it. The catheterization was horrible. My DH was in with him and had I was on the other side of the door (only 1 parent allowed). It was horrible. When that showed nothing she finally said that she would refer us to a urologist. Needless to say, I have NEVER seen a doctor so mad as he was. He let our son play for while and pulled us aside and said there is no excuse for putting a 4 year old through this procedure and a urologist should have been consulted when the ultrasound showed nothing...probably earlier. We are in a small community and he had just moved up about 6 months earlier from Chicago so was probably used to different standards. It turned out our son was in a huge growth spurt which all made sense after talking to the urologist...he said it was very common at that age and it'll correct itself within a few months. which it did. we obviously don't see that doctor anymore.
So my advice is to just make sure you get your answers but make sure you have talked to every knowledgable doctor about the problem first so you don't have to put her through tests that aren't needed.
Good luck and keep us posted on the outcome.

As I have read some of the responses my daughter too had reflux. However she never went through diapers so maybe this is something else that your daughter has. My daughter did end up having surgery about 4 years ago, so she was the worst case senario for reflux and like someone else said it is not a pleasant thing by any means but it is fixable and there is a lot of challenges that came with the surgery and UTI's they are not life threatening. The testing is a pain in the butt but things could be a lot worse so until you find out for sure what is going on just relax and do not stress to much. Good luck to you and let us know if it does turn out to be reflux...

M.; i dont know about uti's or kidney infections, however i do know that when i was a baby , my parents told me that i used to pee all the time, filling more diapers than she can keep up with, i had to wear she said sometimes 3 diapers (cloth diapers) at a time, and still peed right through them, i do not have such things, and am perfectly normal, so dont be surprised if its nothing as well, but its a good idea to take the tests requested by the dr, just in case , if it is something you will want to fix it, any way just tryiing to help sorry if it did not help, just be happy and remember god wont put you through anything you cant handle, D. s