Urinalysis for Kids – How At-Home Urine Testing Can Benefit Your Child’s Health

Childhood is a period of growth during which a child's body and organ systems are still developing to their full function. A disorder in the early years of life has the potential to disrupt normal functioning and lead to lifelong problems. Complicating the matter further, many disorders remain undiagnosed and go untreated because children cannot communicate their symptoms.  

Fortunately, urine test strips can detect many metabolic, systematic, and urological conditions early. Your healthcare provider may recommend you to use urine test strips to detect possible problems with your child's kidneys and other organs. Urinalysis at home can help you find evidence of conditions like urinary tract infections (UTIs), liver disorders, nephrotic syndrome, and inherited disorders before they advance.

A urinalysis with urine test strips is simple to perform, and you can learn to understand the results yourself. The child will still require a laboratory urinalysis under a microscope, but urine test strips will allow you to detect chemical abnormalities early and determine whether further testing is needed.

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Collecting Urine for At-Home Urine Testing

In order to collect urine, younger children need a collection bag. These bags are secured around the urethra with adhesive and collect urine whenever your child passes it.

Older children can provide a mid-stream sample in a cup. Start by instructing your child to clean the area around the urinary opening. Your child should then pass some urine, stop, place the cup to catch the remaining urine, then continue passing urine. This is referred to as mid-stream urine and is generally recommended for urinalysis.

Chemical examination is done by placing a urine test strip coated in chemical patches into the urine sample [1]. Changes in the color of these patches indicate the concentration of chemicals in the urine, and any deviations from the normal range can help detect possible abnormalities.

UTI Test Strips

UTIs are among the most frequent bacterial infections among children. UTIs are especially dangerous in children because they can affect the urinary tract and kidneys. If not treated quickly, the infection can spread in the body. Kidney infections can lead to kidney scarring, hypertension (high blood pressure), and end-stage kidney disease with renal failure.

Some common symptoms of a UTI are fever, vomiting, tiredness, frequent urination, and pain while passing urine [3].

Over-the-Counter (OTC) UTI test strips are an excellent means to test possible urinary tract infections from the convenience of your home. OTC UTI test strips detect the presence of leukocytes (white blood cells) and nitrites in urine. Nitrite in the urine result due to the presence of nitrate-reducing pathogenic bacteria in the urinary tract. Except for enterococci, almost all bacteria that cause UTIs produce this chemical [3]. The presence of leukocytes in urine signifies an active immune response from the body trying to fight the infection.

You can use UTI test strips for a quick, convenient, and affordable way to check signs of inflammation and bacterial activity in the urinary tract [3]. A positive dipstick test provides further evidence of a UTI, which your doctor will seek to confirm with other laboratory tests.

Once a UTI is detected with a urine test strip and confirmed by the laboratory test results, your doctor will ask for either a urine culture or urine PCR test to identify the specific bacteria causing the infection. Doing so will help the doctor identify which antibiotics would work best to fight the infection. In some cases, the doctor may also ask for ultrasound and other imaging tests to find any urinary system abnormalities that caused the UTI.

Protein Urine Test Strips

Protein is valuable for the proper functioning of the body, and the kidneys do not normally allow it to pass through into the urine. Pediatric proteinuria, which is an excessive amount of protein in a child's urine, can be a benign or severe underlying condition. Chronic proteinuria in children (as well as in adults) often indicates significant kidney disease, most commonly minimal change disease, nephrotic syndrome, or both.

Nephrotic syndrome is a condition in which excess protein is lost through the urine [4]. It reduces the protein level in your child's blood, leading to swelling (called edema), usually around the eyes and on the feet. Antibodies, a specialized category of protein that helps defend the body against infections, are also lost through the urine. As a result, your child may have frequent infections.

Protein urine test strips change color when your child's urine has protein in it. If your child's urine has excessive protein in it, call your doctor. Your doctor will diagnose these conditions with a test at a laboratory. Throughout treatment, you can use at-home urine protein test strips to assess response to treatment and detect remission. After completion of treatment, your doctor may recommend that you continue testing your child's urine with urine test strips in case of a relapse.