NEW HAVEN, CT—A twelve-year study by pediatricians and child psychologists out of Yale University suggests there may be a connection between bed-wetting and poor bladder control. Researchers studied thousands of children between ages four and twelve in the nearly million-dollar project to determine the cause of childhood nocturnal enuresis, and a few trends arose to baffle the scientists.
The lead pediatrician on the study, Dr. Susan Harding, offered that some of the leading hypotheses going into the study connected bed-wetting to some form of trauma in early life, temporary illness, abuse, and other psychological issues. "We were shocked when the results pointed to a bladder control issue. That was the last thing any of us expected."
Many experts have traditionally agreed that there must be a complex explanation for kids whizzing the sheets. Dr. James Pendergast, a professor specializing in abnormal child psychology, was especially perplexed to find Freudian theories did not hold up in the study. "I've always believed Freud's postulates that children pee the bed as a result of unfulfilled Oedipal desires, but less than .01% of our test subjects who soiled themselves while sleeping expressed any sexual interest in their parents," the unmarried 47-year-old disc golfer explained. "This study really flipped the paradigm."
The research team feels more studies are necessary before any conclusive results can be published, but at this point the consensus is that kids probably don't want to pee all over themselves and their favorite blankies. Harding suggests training children to "hold it" until they can reach the bathroom.