Editor’s Note:
Dr. Pei Honggang analyzed a number of studies at home and abroad and found that most of the hazards of putting excrement into urine were actually non-existent. However, due to insufficient studies and other more effective toilet training methods, it is still not recommended for children to put excrement into urine.
It is a child-rearing tradition in our country to excrement and urinate. Many parents begin to excrement and urinate their children from a few weeks or even just after their children are born. Before, there were no such things as diapers and Pampers, which can be said to be economical and affordable.
In recent years, there have been more and more news about the harm of excrement to urine. For example, excrement to urine will lead to constipation, anal fissure, hemorrhoids, rectal prolapse, bed wetting, psychological problems, etc.
Today, when we are parents ourselves, due to various reasons, our children may still be exposed to excrement and urine. In case the children are exposed, will there be so much harm?
Can excrement and urine train children to defecate autonomously?
The public impression of [putting excrement into urine] is probably like this: parents hold the child’s thighs with their two hands respectively, then slightly separate them, exposing the child’s anus and genitals, allowing the child to sit half on the adult’s knee, and at the same time making hisses or hisses to encourage the child to urinate or defecate.
In 1977, the American Journal of Pediatrics published a study. Researchers asked mothers to determine whether the child wants to urinate and defecate by observing the child’s body movements, expressions, voices, etc. from a few weeks after the child was born. Once signs of wanting to defecate were found, they began to urinate with excrement.
In this way, the researchers found that 30 of the 34 children initially examined had successful defecation training at the age of 4-6 months. After 5 months of follow-up, 10 out of 16 children can not wet their pants during the day and seldom wet their beds at night. When the children reach the age of 1 and can walk, they can defecate outside the living area by themselves. In short, it shows that such a small child can also cooperate with adults’ guidance to control urination and defecation independently.
The point is, in this [shit-to-urine] process, Children are not forced to defecate passively, Instead, the mother noticed the child’s willingness to defecate and then helped him. After defecating, she rewarded and encouraged him through nursing, intimacy or other happy activities. Through this repeated action, the child linked this sound, special posture and defecation, slowly realizing autonomous control of defecation. This result is actually the result of mother-child interaction and cooperation.
Therefore, it can be said that not all early defecation training is ineffective and/or forced, and the results and effects may be different under different cultures and parenting environments.
Today’s use of diapers is very convenient, Even if the child already has the conditions for toilet training, Many parents are too lazy to take the initiative to train their children, It is very common to be inseparable from diapers at the age of three or four, which has led some people abroad to begin to reflect on the appropriateness of the current toilet training methods. Contrary to the current demonization of “excrement to urine” in China, western countries have begun to pay new attention to “excrement to urine”, and they have begun to study children’s defecation signals and training methods to assist defecation.
A study conducted by Italians found that children who started [excrement and urine] within the first 6 months successfully trained earlier than those who started training later, and no obvious side effects were observed.
However, the crux of the problem is that compared with the mainstream recommended toilet training methods, these few low-quality research samples are few, the follow-up time is short, and the research methods are relatively rough, which obviously cannot fully prove that [putting excrement into urine] is effective and harmless.
How harmful is it to pee with excrement?
Many people criticize [excrement and urine] and think that this is forcing children to defecate. However, I saw in the hospital that children who were excreted and urinated seldom cry, because it is rare that parents have to force such a small child to defecate. Most of them think that when children want to defecate, they do not want to defecate. If they do not forget it, defecating does not mean forcing children to defecate.
Is there any basis for what is currently believed to be the harm of defecation?
1. Constipation
Some people think that premature training will lead to constipation and other problems, but this is groundless speculation. The behavior of urinating with excrement is so common in China, but the incidence rate of constipation in children is about 4.73%, which is no higher than that in developed countries where excrement is rarely urinated.
2. Anal fissure and rectal prolapse
As for saying that this posture of putting excrement into urine will lead to anal fissure and rectal prolapse, it is even more imaginary. For children, the posture of putting excrement into urine is not much different from squatting on the toilet. Anal fissure is mainly related to constipation, rectal prolapse is more related to congenital development and malnutrition, and there is no evidence to prove that they are related to putting excrement into urine.
3. Psychology
As long as the child is not forced to excret and pee, I think this kind of worry is unnecessary. Although the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends training after 18 months, its popular science website healthychildren also said that as long as children are not forced or abused, training before 18 months is unlikely to cause any harm to children.
Just because one or several children who urinate with excrement have these problems, one cannot think that urinating with excrement will lead to these problems. These children who urinate with excrement still breathe air. It cannot be said that breathing air will lead to anal fissure and rectal prolapse.
Can I still pee with shit?
Since there is no harm in what to urinate from excrement, is it suggested that everyone urinate from excrement?
I still don’t recommend that you give your children excrement and urine, because the current research has not found enough evidence to show that excrement and urine are effective and harmless.
The above-mentioned studies are still relatively rough. Some of them are not direct studies, but early toilet training.
Generally speaking, although no definite harm has been found from excrement to urine, children should be trained to defecate as much as possible with the mainstream toilet training recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics before more in-depth and reliable research is carried out.
Of course, no matter whether the excrement is used to urinate or the children are trained to go to the toilet according to the mainstream methods, they should not force or force the children. Of course, they should also take care of the children’s privacy, do not wear open-backed pants, and do not urinate excrement at will in public.