How To Get A Clean Catch Urine Sample

Urine samples need to be nerveless for urine tests. Urine tests may be washed for a number of reasons, and they are the only way to know for sure if your kid has a urinary tract infection (UTI).

If the reason for the urine test is to decide if your kid has a UTI, it is very important that the urine is obtained from your child in a sterile (make clean) way so that the sample is non contaminated with leaner (germs) from the peel.

Your doctor will tell you which method is most appropriate, and volition provide you with any equipment you need to collect a sample.

Collecting a urine sample from younger children

Babies and small children tin can't wee 'on need', which makes information technology difficult to go a sample. There are four possible ways to get urine from younger children.

Clean-catch

This method involves trying to catch some urine in a sample container that your doc will give you. Offset by offering your child a drink (cup, bottle, breastfeed). Most children who are going to wee for a clean-grab will practise and so within 1 hr.

Take the sample container ready.
Remove your child's nappy.
Wash your hands thoroughly earlier collecting the sample, or wear gloves.
Clean the skin around the genital area. Use clean plastic tweezers and gauze soaked in h2o if available, or use baby wipes (Figure ane).
Keep watching until your child does a wee. Be prepare to take hold of a urine sample in the container when the wee comes.
To encourage your child to wee, you tin can gently rub their lower belly (tum) for a few minutes using a make clean piece of gauze soaked in cold water (Effigy ii).
Hold the container away from your kid's peel when catching the urine (Figure 3). This is of import so that leaner from your kid'southward pare (or your skin) don't contaminate the urine sample.

Urine samples

Bag specimen

Your md might give you a special handbag to take hold of the wee in. This pocketbook is stuck to the peel using gentle double-sided tape. In general, this method should not be used when testing for UTIs, every bit germs from the pare often contaminate the bag and urine.

Catheter

A catheter is a tube that a nurse or md puts into your kid'southward bladder through their urethra (the pigsty where the urine comes out). Fewer germs from the skin go into the sample this way compared with the clean-catch method. A catheter is a good way to collect a urine sample when in that location is not much urine in the bladder. However, your child may find the catheter uncomfortable, and they may exist distressed at being held still while it is being inserted.

Suprapubic aspirate (SPA)

For an SPA, your child volition demand to lie on their back and be held still. A physician puts a needle through the skin of the lower abdomen into your child'due south bladder and takes out some urine. Germs from the skin tin can't go into the urine, and then SPA is the cleanest way to collect a sample.

An SPA is very safety, and problems are rare. SPAs are commonly very quick, but because they involve using a needle, they can injure and and then they are only done in certain circumstances.

If your baby or child's float is not total, the md may not be able to go any urine with an SPA. In this case, the dr. may await a footling while and try once again, or use the catheter method instead.

Collecting a urine sample from older children

You tin collect a midstream specimen from older children who can wee when asked to. Y'all doctor will provide you with a sample container.

Clean the peel around the genital area, using gauze if available, otherwise with baby wipes, damp tissues or a clean, wet facewasher.
When your child starts to wee, allow some wee laissez passer into the toilet.
Collect a sample from halfway through the wee (midstream).
Don't permit the sample container affect the skin.

Key points to recall

If a urine test is for UTI, it is important that a urine sample is obtained in a sterile way.
Clean-catch, catheters or suprapubic aspirates are suitable ways to collect urine samples from babies and modest children for UTI tests.
Midstream specimens tin be collected from older children who can wee on need.

For more information

Kids Health Info fact sheet: Urinary tract infection

Common questions our doctors are asked

What happens if my child's midstream specimen ends upwardly being from the end of the wee?

If the specimen is from the cease of the wee that is okay – the of import affair is not to grab the beginning of the wee, which is more likely to be contaminated.

How painful is an SPA?

An SPA hurts well-nigh as much as a blood test. Occasionally, a numbing cream is used on the peel before the SPA to reduce your child'due south discomfort, just it volition take 45 minutes to work.

Developed by The Royal Children's Hospital General Medicine and Emergency departments. We acknowledge the input of RCH consumers and carers.

Reviewed March 2018.

Kids Health Info is supported past The Royal Children's Infirmary Foundation. To donate, visit www.rchfoundation.org.au.