Dana Reinke remembers well when her daughter Peyton, then three years old, came down with an unexplained fever. ?There wasn?t anything identifiably wrong,? she recalls, ?but her fever didn?t go away for a few days, and she was totally lethargic. So I took her to the doctor, and one of the first things he did was take a urine sample.?
It turned out Peyton had a urinary tract infection (UTI), which occurs when bowel bacteria make their way up into the urinary tract?sometimes as far as the kidney?causing an infection. While UTIs in older kids and adults typically announce themselves with a burning sensation while peeing, younger kids, who either can?t tell you it hurts or can?t distinguish where the pain is coming from, may only run a temperature. (Other possible clues include needing to pee frequently and urgently, and accidents by kids who are toilet-trained.) Consequently, children younger than three who get a fever without any other symptoms should have a urine sample tested for bacteria. While it?s sometimes considered OK to treat adults for a UTI based on symptoms alone, in kids experts recommend urine testing to confirm the presence of infection. There are two ways to quickly test for a UTI: dipstick and urinalysis both confirm the presence of some sort of bacteria. But the preferred test in kids is a urine culture because it identifies the specific type of bacteria, though it takes 24 to 48 hours for results to come back. What makes some kids prone to UTIs" Age i...