Feb. 2012 -- Constipation is often the cause of bedwetting in children, a small, new study suggests.

Failure to diagnose constipation as the cause of bedwetting can lead parents and children on an unnecessarily long, costly and difficult effort to cure nighttime wetting, the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center researchers said.

Researchers found that thirty children and adolescents who sought treatment for bedwetting all had large amounts of stool in their rectums, despite the majority having normal bowel habits. Twenty five of the children (eighty three percent) were cured of bedwetting within three months, after treatment with laxative therapy. 

The study appeared recently online in the journal Urology.

(Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, news release, Jan. 27, 2012)