Nitrite in the urine of a child

Urinalysis helps to quickly find out if your child has urinary system diseases. Why can a baby be prescribed a definition of nitrites in the urine, what will this indicator tell you about and is it worth worrying if the nitrites in children's urine are elevated?

Nitrites are chemicals that are salts of nitrogen. In the urine of healthy babies nitrites are not detected. Normally, with urine, nitrates are released into the body of a child with vegetables and fruits. If bacteria enter the urinary tract, nitrates become nitrites under the influence of their enzymes.

For the determination of nitrites, a screening analysis, characterized by high specificity, is carried out. It is included in the general urine test.

With a positive result, only 4% of tests lack bacterial contamination of urine. But with a negative result, there is a very large error of about 50%, which causes the limited use of this screening.

The food of a child who was sent to collect urine to determine nitrite should not be changed, and any drugs, including vitamins, should be excluded before the test. In addition, for the detection of nitrites, it is important to examine the most fresh urine that has been collected in a sterile container. This will help to find out the real picture, and to make sure the accuracy of the results, you should do a few tests, after waiting 4-5 days between them.

To identify nitrites at home, you can use special strips purchased at the pharmacy. They are coated with a special reagent, which, in the presence of nitrite in the children's urine, reacts with these compounds. Looking at the intensity of staining of the test strip, you can roughly estimate the concentration of nitrite (for this, the strip is compared with a marker on the package). The strips begin to detect these chemicals when they are more than 2 mg per liter of urine. In this case, the strip becomes light pink.

Testing with a test strip is important the first portion of children's urine, and for greater accuracy of the results, the child should not take antibiotics for three days before the test. It should also be remembered that a negative test result does not indicate that there is no nitrite in the urine, since their number may not be sufficient to initiate a chemical reaction.

To suspect the presence of nitrites in the urine of the baby can be on the following grounds:

• Urine is turbid, its smell has become unpleasant and sharp.
• The child began to urinate more often than usual.
• The kid may complain of pain during hiking "in a small way."
• The child has a high body temperature, there is a weakness, he refuses to eat.

Detection of nitrites in the urine of a child is carried out to diagnose infections of the urinary system. The appearance of such compounds is characteristic of cystitis and pyelonephritis caused by salmonella, citrobacter, klebsiella, intestinal sticks and other pathogenic microbes.

In infants, the appearance of nitrites in urine may be due to the use of diapers.

In older children, the risk of infection increases. Bacteria can get into the urinary tract and in violation of the rules of hygiene, and injuries, and diseases of the genital organs. The development of infection is often associated with hypothermia, so it is important for parents to ensure that the child is dressed according to the weather and does not sit on a cold surface.

In approximately every second case, the result of the test for nitrites in the urine is false-negative - the analysis does not reveal nitrites, but bacteria are present in the urine. This may be due to:

1. The inability of some bacteria to convert nitrates. It is known that many gram-positive microorganisms do not possess enzymes that affect food nitrates.
2. Fast emptying of the bladder. In order for the bacteria to produce nitrites, urine must remain inside the bladder for at least four hours. That is why it is best to investigate the morning portion of urine.
3. Excretion with urine of a large amount of ascorbic acid. A large concentration of urobilinogen may also lead to a false-negative result.

If tests have found nitrites in the children's urine and repeated tests have confirmed this, the doctor will first send the baby to other examinations to make sure that the infection process is present.

Mother only needs to remember that such treatment is long, and when the symptoms of the disease have disappeared, it is impossible to stop antibiotic therapy. Untreated infection after a while will resume, but the bacteria will no longer respond to the same antibiotic.