What problems might there be?
- Urination during the day
- Bedwetting
- Having to urinate very frequently and/or urgently
- Bladder infections
- Loss of stools during the day
- Fear of urinating or defecating
- Constipation
- Diarrhoea
- Chronic abdominal pain with no apparent cause
Intake and examination
Upon registration, you will be sent a questionnaire. You should return this questionnaire before the intake. By means of this questionnaire, your child's symptoms will be comprehensively assessed. The questionnaire asks questions about your child's urination, defecation, toilet position, eating and drinking, and some questions about his/her motor development and general functioning. These questions are important to identify the problem and to assess how we can help the child. When you and your child come for the first time, we will go through the questions, but the focus will be on your child to create a good atmosphere.
After the intake interview, an examination will be done. During the examination, we will look at your child's overall motor skills. This is necessary to see how your child moves and to assess his/her ability to contract and relax the pelvic floor muscles. The function of the pelvic floor will also be assessed. After the first treatment, you and your child will be asked to fill in a drink and fibre list for a few days and to keep a diary of urine or faeces for a few days to gain insight into the problem.
The pelvic floor muscles
Among other things, the pelvic floor muscles play an important role in urinating and defecating. Normally, these muscles are relaxed. They should be able to tighten when peeing or defecating needs to be held up and fully relax again when urinating and defecating. In children with urination and defecation problems, the pelvic floor muscles often work too hard and children will especially need to
learn to relax them.
Treatment
Based on the intake and examination, it will be assessed whether paediatric pelvic physiotherapy may be useful and a treatment plan will be drawn up together with the child and you.
Treatment will include:
- Education about urinating and/or defecating and explanation of the symptoms
- Teaching correct toilet behaviour, rhythm and posture
- Advice on eating and drinking
- Demystification
- Exercise therapy aimed at, among other things, learning to consciously tighten and relax the pelvic floor, body awareness and breathing.
Practice at home
It is important to practise what has been learned together at home after treatment!
Treatment of pelvic floor problems requires a lot of motivation and perseverance from your child, but also motivation and support from you as a parent.
How long the course of treatment will take depends on the nature and severity of the complaint(s) and how long the complaint(s) have existed. The paediatric pelvic therapist tries to be as attuned to your child as possible through information material.
Referral and Reimbursement
A visit to the paediatric physiotherapist does not require a doctor's referral; we are, as it is called, "directly accessible".
However, you can also be referred by a doctor.
There are 18 treatments covered by the basic insurance. If you want to know how many more treatments you have, please
contact your health insurer.