Learn what a typical Urinary tract infections in children prognosis is at Consumer Reports Health.

Urinary tract infections in children

What will happen to my child?

Urinary tract infections are treated with antibiotics. Your child should start to feel better after a day or two of taking antibiotics.

It's important to make sure your child takes the antibiotics for as long as your doctor recommends. Otherwise, there's a risk that your child will get another urinary tract infection. Some children get other problems from having a urinary tract infection, as they get older.

Children are especially likely to get another urinary tract infection if they get their first infection before they are 1 year old. The research shows that:

Source:
Merrick MV, Notghi A, Chalmers N, et al.
Long-term follow up to determine the prognostic value of imaging after urinary tract infections. Part 2: Scarring.
Archives of Diseases in Childhood. 1995; 72: 393–396.

About 8 in 10 girls and 7 in 10 boys get an infection before they are 1 year old get another one.
About 4 in 10 girls and boys who get an infection after they are 1 year old get another infection.

Urinary tract infections can sometimes scar the

kidney
Your kidneys are organs that filter your blood to make urine. You have two of them, on either side of your abdominal cavity, toward your back.

kidneys. Between 5 in 100 and 15 in 100 children get kidney scarring within one or two years of their first infection.

Source:
Dick PT, Feldman W.
Routine diagnostic imaging for childhood urinary tract infections: a systematic overview.
Journal of Pediatrics. 1996; 128: 15-22.

² Certain things seem to increase your child's risk of kidney scarring. These include:

Having more infections. The more infections your child has, the greater their risk of scarring

Source:
Jodal U.
The natural history of bacteriuria in childhood.
Infectious Diseases Clinics of North America. 1987; 1: 713-729.

³
Having infections that involve the kidneys (pyelonephritis) rather than infections of the

bladder
Your bladder is the hollow organ at the top of your pelvis that stores urine. It is similar to a balloon, only with stronger walls. It fills up with urine until you go to the bathroom.

bladder or ureters (the tubes going from the kidneys to the bladder)

Source:
Rosenberg AR, Rossleigh MA, Brydon MP, et al.
Evaluation of acute urinary tract infection in children by dimercaptosuccinic acid scintigraphy: a prospective study.
Journal of Urology. 1992; 148: 1746-1749.

⁴
Having an abnormality in the urinary tract that causes urine to flow back to their kidneys (a problem called reflux).

Source:
Hoberman A, Wald ER, Hickey RW, et al.
Oral versus initial intravenous therapy for urinary tract infections in young febrile children.
Pediatrics. 1999; 104: 79-86.

⁵ Reflux often goes away by itself after a while. More than a third of the children in one study no longer had reflux four years later.

Source:
Smellie JM, Barratt TM, Chantler C, et al.
Medical versus surgical treatment in children with severe bilateral vesicoureteric reflux and bilateral nephropathy: a randomized controlled trial.
Lancet. 2001; 357: 1329-1333.

⁶ In another study, 4 in 10 children had grown out of their reflux within one year.

Source:
Capozza N, Caione P.
Dextranomer/hyaluronic acid copolymer implantation for vesico-ureteric reflux: a randomized comparison with antibiotic prophylaxis.
Journal of Pediatrics. 2002; 140: 230-234.

⁷

Scarring seems to be more likely to happen in younger children (under two), and becomes less of a problem in children who get urinary tract infections when they are older.

Source:
Piepsz A, Tamminen-Mobius T, Reiners C, et al.
Five-year study of medical and surgical treatment in children with severe vesico-ureteric reflux dimercaptosuccinic acid findings. International Reflux Study Group in Europe.
European Journal of Pediatrics. 1998; 157: 753–758.

⁸

Source:
Vernon SJ, Coulthard MG, Lambert HJ, et al.
New renal scarring in children who at age 3 and 4 had had normal scars with dimercaptosuccinic acid: follow up study.
BMJ. 1997; 315: 905-908.

⁹

Kidneys that are damaged by infections might not grow well and work as they should. As they get older, children who have scarred kidneys are more likely to have kidney infections and other problems, such as

high blood pressure
Your blood pressure is considered to be high when it is above the accepted normal range. The usual limit for normal blood pressure is 140/90. If either the first (systolic) number is above 140 or the lower (diastolic) number is above 90, a person is considered to have high blood pressure. Doctors sometimes call high blood pressure "hypertension."

high blood pressure.

Source:
Smellie JM, Prescod NP, Shaw PJ, et al.
Childhood reflux and urinary infection: a follow-up of 10-41 years in 226 adults.
Pediatric Nephrology. 1998; 12: 727-736.

¹⁰ For this reason, it's important that your child is examined after an infection to check for any problems, especially if the infection involved their kidneys.

Sources for the information on this page:

Merrick MV, Notghi A, Chalmers N, et al.Long-term follow up to determine the prognostic value of imaging after urinary tract infections. Part 2: Scarring.Archives of Diseases in Childhood. 1995; 72: 393–396.

Dick PT, Feldman W.Routine diagnostic imaging for childhood urinary tract infections: a systematic overview.Journal of Pediatrics. 1996; 128: 15-22.

Jodal U.The natural history of bacteriuria in childhood.Infectious Diseases Clinics of North America. 1987; 1: 713-729.

Rosenberg AR, Rossleigh MA, Brydon MP, et al.Evaluation of acute urinary tract infection in children by dimercaptosuccinic acid scintigraphy: a prospective study.Journal of Urology. 1992; 148: 1746-1749.

Hoberman A, Wald ER, Hickey RW, et al.Oral versus initial intravenous therapy for urinary tract infections in young febrile children.Pediatrics. 1999; 104: 79-86.

Smellie JM, Barratt TM, Chantler C, et al.Medical versus surgical treatment in children with severe bilateral vesicoureteric reflux and bilateral nephropathy: a randomized controlled trial.Lancet. 2001; 357: 1329-1333.

Capozza N, Caione P.Dextranomer/hyaluronic acid copolymer implantation for vesico-ureteric reflux: a randomized comparison with antibiotic prophylaxis.Journal of Pediatrics. 2002; 140: 230-234.

Piepsz A, Tamminen-Mobius T, Reiners C, et al.Five-year study of medical and surgical treatment in children with severe vesico-ureteric reflux dimercaptosuccinic acid findings. International Reflux Study Group in Europe.European Journal of Pediatrics. 1998; 157: 753–758.

Vernon SJ, Coulthard MG, Lambert HJ, et al.New renal scarring in children who at age 3 and 4 had had normal scars with dimercaptosuccinic acid: follow up study.BMJ. 1997; 315: 905-908.

Smellie JM, Prescod NP, Shaw PJ, et al.Childhood reflux and urinary infection: a follow-up of 10-41 years in 226 adults.Pediatric Nephrology. 1998; 12: 727-736.

This information was last updated on Jun 30, 2008

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