Primary enuresis or primary nocturnal enuresis (PNE) is when a child has easily developed the ability to control their bladder during the daytime but still after a six month period cannot control their bladder at night while they sleep.

Bed wetting affects approximately five to seven million children every year, more boys than girls. Primary enuresis is particularly common in children who are six years and younger and in most cases it’s something that children will outgrow. Studies have shown that approximately every fifteen out of one hundred children who are chronic bed wetters simply stop the behavior on their own and require no doctor visits or treatment whatsoever.

Primary enuresis is believed to happen for one of two reasons. First the child has an immature bladder, either in a physical sense or a neurological one, and second, the child falls into a very deep sleep and is unaware that the bladder has sent a message to the brain that it’s full and needs to be emptied. Primary enuresis is also believed to have a genetic link and may not be something a person can help.

Many doctors believe the best way to stop bed wetting is to retrain your brain to either wake yourself up in the night when the need to empty your bladder arises or keep you asleep and able to hold the urine until you wake in the morning. These imperatives can be achieved by way of special exercises for the bladder, such as visualizing yourself waking up dry, holding off using the toilet until later in the daytime, and even using a special alarm that’s attached to a pad placed in your underpants while you sleep.