728x90
my iParenting
From Our Sponsors
Get Pregnancy Information
e-newsletters
Sign up to receive our free weekly e-newsletters

new terms of use
new privacy policy
award-winning products
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
Home › Articles › Toilet Training › What's the Story on Withholding?

What's the Story on Withholding?

Working Through a Common Training Challenge

By Kelly Burgess

Pages:  1  2  3  

Dr. Jody McVittie doesn't really like the term "withholding" when talking about a child's bowel movement. It implies that the child is always doing it on purpose, she says. While withholding bowel movements (BMs) is a fairly common problem, it's not usually an overt behavioral problem. And the good news is it's easily overcome!

Dr. McVittie, a family practitioner in Everett, Wash., says children withhold BMs for a variety of reasons. These are some of the most common:

  • Pain: A child may have been constipated at one time, passed a painful BM, remembered the pain and tried to "hold it" for subsequent movements. This initial constipation could be the result of a recent illness, or a variety of other causes, but the long-term problem becomes the pain issue.
  • Fear: For reasons not fully understood, some children have a fear of "letting go" of their BMs into the toilet. Certainly this is not a rational fear for an adult, so it may be difficult to understand, but it's very real to the child.
  • Control: This is not an overt behavioral problem but a common developmental one. Children often feel like they have little control over their environments, and this is an area where they can have complete control.
  • Distraction: Sometimes a child may simply be too wrapped up in an activity to even think about stopping to go to the bathroom. This is an unconscious reaction, but it can cause problems.
Cause for Constipation

What all of the above issues have in common is that they can lead to constipation, which, when it becomes chronic, can lead to a condition called encopresis. Encopresis is fecal soiling (the loss of stool matter into a child's underwear). When a child has not yet established regular bowel movements and begins to hold them back (for whatever reason) the colon can become distended and impacted. This causes stool to leak around the impacted fecal matter, and the impaction can become painful and difficult for the child to pass.


Pages:  1  2  3  


Want to see more?