Urinary Tract Infection

Caring for our kids shouldn't be half baked. I learned it the hard way. I may have all sorts of reasons but it doesn't eliminate the fact that our little Maia suffered from Urinary Tract Infection, commonly known as UTI.

While my husband and I attend to our 8 to 5, 5-days-a-week work, our children are left with their nannies. Both nannies are good in caring for our children, making sure all our instructions are noted and done as ordered.

In Maia's case, we were too dependent on using disposable diapers for her wetting. Most often than not, we change the diaper when it's already soaked up with urine or when she pooped. Since Maia can't talk well yet and cannot express what's up with her, we often detect a poop only when it's smelly.

We immediately wash her up, but then, after getting infected and hospitalized for 5 days, and after reading articles about urinary tract infection, it was only then that I fully realized what had happened to our deary.

The culprit, a bacteria Escherichia coli, better known as E. coli. These bacteria normally thrive in bowels and around the anus. Urinating flushes out the bacteria, depending on the quantity though and once it reaches the bladder, urinating cannot stop the spreading already, thus infection occurs.

This unfortunate phenomenon happened to Maia. I dread the day when I rushed her to the emergency room. Together with her nanny, we were trying to keep her conscious. Although her temperature appears normal, she was having chills, her lips and nails were turning dark - bluish black. I had the greatest fear of my life that time. I tried to keep calm and prayed and prayed to God to spare my dear Maia. The previous day though, she had fever and we managed to bring it down by giving her paracetamol and constant sponge bath.

Upon reaching the hospital, the doctor told us that she was about to have high fever. He instructed us to do a sponge bath on Maia and alas, her temperature soared up. The heat didn't come out of her body thus she was having the chills. A while after, the nurse collected blood sample from Maia and told me to collect a urine for another laboratory procedure.

Hours after, the result came out, E. coli accumulation on her urine was way too high. We were expecting for prescription medicine, instead the doctor told us that Maia has to be admitted. Due to the high occurrence of the bacteria, home caring will not be enough to eliminate the bacteria from her. They had to insert dextrose on her and through it the antibiotic.

Good thing, Maia's system is strong that it went well in dispelling the bacteria out of her body. I am very much thankful to the Lord, that aside from the medicine, our strong faith and prayers to God helped a lot in healing our princess.

Since then, we've stopped using disposable diapers during the day, instead, with the help of Maia's nanny, we are training her to use the potty this early and when she's wet, replace her undies immediately. Also, Maia seems to have learned from her experience too. Whenever she pees, talking her to wash and change her undies has been easy.

Lessons learned....sometimes, we have to maintain old traditions and practices versus new technologies, we shouldn't be too dependent on them. In other words, cloth diapers are still better than disposable ones.