Bedwetting Alarms: No More Soggy Nights

 

While nocturnal enuresis sounds like a disease, it’s not. Even so, it can cause serious embarrassment and poor self-esteem in those who suffer from it.

What is it? Nocturnal enuresis is, in layman’s terms, bedwetting. If you have a child past the age of six or an elderly relative struggling with bedwetting, you may be wondering if there is any help. There is, and it’s called a bedwetting alarm.

An electronic bedwetting alarm sounds an alert as soon as a sleeper begins to urinate. Bedwetting alarms are designed to assist bedwetters in training their brains to react to their full bladders by awakening and using the toilet. A bedwetting alarm “senses” moisture as the first drops of urine are released, and sounds a shrill alarm, awakening the sleeper.

A feeling of bladder fullness will eventually replace the sound of the bedwetting alarm as the signal to the sleeper’s brain that it’s time to get up and visit the bathroom. Bedwetting alarm therapy is actually a type of behavioral conditioning.

There are three types of bedwetting alarms:

With a wearable alarm, the sleeper places the moisture sensing device in his or her nightclothes or underwear. A wearable bedwetting alarm reacts to the urine almost instantaneously. A wearable alarm is a design in which the child wears the moisture sensor, which is connected to the alarm device by means of a cord, in or on their underwear or pajamas. This type of sensor will detect moisture almost immediately.

In a bell-and-pad bedwetting alarm, the moisture sensor is in the form of a pad placed beneath the sleeper. This pad does not sense moisture until it actually soaks up the urine, so does not react as quickly as the wearable bedwetting alarm. Another possible drawback is that, if the sleeper rolls off the pad, it will not detect moisture. The bell-and-pad bedwetting alarm is also attached to the alarm unit with a cord.

The third type of bedwetting alarm, the wireless alarm, has a moisture sensor which communicates to the alarm unit with a transmitter. Like the wearable alarm, the wireless bedwetting alarm requires that the moisture sensor be attached to the sleeper’s nightclothes or underwear. But because it transmits its signal without a cord, the bedwetting alarm unit can be located anywhere in the sleeper’s room. It does not have to be close to the bed.

Wearable and wireless bedwetting alarms will be effective only if they stay attached. If the material to which a sensor is attached is too thick, or if the sleeper tosses, it may loosen. Some bed wetting alarms, to remedy this, have their moisture sensors embedded in briefs, onto which the transmitter snaps.

Bed wetting therapy experts have estimated that, with consistent use, bedwetting alarms will retrain sleepers to self-awaken in between four and six weeks, and are successful for sixty to eighty percent of bedwetters.