Your child’s doctor or nurse will give you a sterile (completely clean) container to collect the urine sample. You may need to do this at the clinic, or take the container home and bring it back.
When getting a urine sample, it is important to make sure it is not contaminated. This means that there is no dirt or bacteria in the urine sample.
This section describes getting urine samples:
- from older children and young people
- from babies and young children who use nappies – different methods
- from children who are using a catheter, Mitrofanoff or urinary stoma
- using a catheter or a procedure called suprapubic aspiration – these may be used for children who are very ill, especially with a urinary tract infection (UTI).
Children and young people
- For children and young people, urine can be collected as they pass urine normally.
- Do not open the sterile container until you and your child are ready.
- To help make sure the urine sample is clean, make sure your child washes his or her hands and genital area with soap and water. They may dry themself with a clean towel. If you are helping your child, wash and dry your hands too.
- While your child is weeing, catch some of the urine into the container. You usually do not need to fill it to the top.
- To help make sure this does not have any germs that may be on your or your child’s skin, you may need to get a mid-stream sample. This is from the middle part of the urine flow. Your child can start weeing into the toilet or potty. After one or two seconds, catch some of the urine into the container. Take the container away before your child stops urinating.
- Screw the lid on tight.
Further tips for teenage girls
Teenage girls need to be especially careful when getting a mid-stream sample.
- Your daughter should wash her hands and her genital area, and dry them with a clean towel.
- She should sit on the toilet with her legs wide apart.
- Before weeing, she should separate her labia – this is the skin around her genital area.
Babies and children in nappies
For babies and young children who use nappies, you will need another way to collect urine. There are three ways:
- clean catch
- using an absorbent pad
- using a collection bag
Clean catch
The most common method is called clean catch. The urine is less likely to be contaminated than with other methods. This means waiting up to an hour for your child to wee and catching it in a container. Good times are after a bottle feed, during a nappy change, or before a bath.
Your doctor or nurse will give you a container. To keep the sample as clean as possible, follow these steps.
- Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water.
- Wash your child’s genitals (the area covered by the nappy) with lukewarm water and a soft cloth or cotton wool. Always clean from the front area backwards, towards the bottom.
- Wait until your child wees. When he or she does, catch the urine in the smaller container – you do not need to fill it to the top. Make sure your child’s skin does not touch the container.
- Screw the lid on tight.
Absorbent pad
Your doctor or nurse may give you a special absorbent pad, with a syringe and a sterile container. They will show you what to do.
- Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water.
- Wash your child’s genitals (the area covered by the nappy) with lukewarm water and a soft cloth or cotton wool. Always clean from the front area backwards, towards the bottom. When dry, put the pad in your child’s nappy.
- Check the nappy every 10 minutes until the pad is wet. Replace the pad with a clean one after 30 minutes, or earlier if your child does a poo.
- When the pad is wet, remove it from the nappy and put it on a clean surface, wet side up.
- Wash your hands.
- Put the tip of the syringe into the wet pad. Gently pull back on the plunger – the urine should slowly draw up into the syringe.
- Empty the urine from the syringe into the sterile container, by pushing the plunger.
- Repeat if needed, until enough urine has been collected. Screw the lid on tight.
Collection bag
Using a collection bag is a quicker way to collect urine than the clean catch method, but there is a higher rate of contamination. It is sometimes used in clinic, but you may be asked to use one at home. It is most often used when the urine is being tested for something other than infection.
- Make sure you are using the correct bag – there is a different one for boys and girls.
- Clean your child’s nappy area with lukewarm water and a soft cloth or cotton wool. Always clean from the front area backwards, towards the bottom.
- Make sure the skin is dry, then apply the sticky part of the bag to your child’s skin. You can put a nappy on your child – make sure the closed part of the bag is pointing down and can be seen outside of the nappy.
- When you see urine in the bag, carefully remove the bag.
- Hold the bag over the sterile container. Using a clean pair of scissors, make a small cut in the bottom of the bag so that the urine can drain into the sterile container.
For children who use a catheter, Mitrofanoff or urinary stoma
Some children cannot wee in the normal way. They need to use special equipment to empty their bladders. For these children, a urine sample can be collected using their usual method of emptying their bladder.
Catheters and other equipment
A urinary catheter is a thin, plastic tube that is usually inserted through the area where your child normally wees from and into the urethra, the tube that leads up to the bladder.
A Mitrofanoff is a small tunnel from the bladder to the outside of the body, which is created during an operation. It is made from an unused part of the body. To empty the bladder, a catheter is placed inside the Mitrofanoff.
A urinary stoma is a small opening, which is created during an operation. There are two types of operations.
- A ureterostomy creates a stoma connected to the ureter (the tube from the kidney to the bladder).
- A vesicostomy creates a stoma connected to the bladder.
If a urine sample is needed urgently
In some children, it is important to get a urine sample quickly. This is normally only used in children who may have a serious urinary tract infection (UTI), so that treatment can be started as soon as the urine is collected.
These methods are done in the hospital:
- using a catheter
- suprapubic aspiration.
These methods are normally only used in children who may have a serious urinary tract infection (UTI). UTIs are caused by germs, which are usually bacteria.
Urine sample procedures
Children with UTIs need to take an antibiotic, a medicine that stops the germs growing in their urine. Your child’s doctor will need to get a urine sample as soon as possible, to find which germ is causing the infection and decide on the best antibiotic.
These methods are done in the hospital:
- using a catheter
- suprapubic aspiration
Using a catheter
- Your nurse or doctor will clean your child, wearing sterile gloves.
- They will pass a small catheter through the urethra, which is the tube that your child normally passes urine out of. They will pass the catheter through to the bladder.
- Urine will pass out of the catheter almost straight away. It will be collected in a sterile container.
- The tube will be removed, and your child will start to be given the antibiotic.
Suprapubic aspiration
In suprapubic aspiration, a needle is inserted through the tummy’s skin into the bladder. Some urine is taken up into the needle.
- Your child may be given a local anaesthetic, which is a medicine that is put on his or her skin so that it goes numb.
- Your nurse or doctor cleans your child’s tummy, the area over the bladder, wearing sterile gloves.
- An ultrasound scanner, which can look inside the body, may be used to find the bladder. A special probe (small hand-held device with jelly on tip) is moved around the outside of your child’s tummy, and an image of the bladder can be seen on a screen.
- A thin needle is inserted through your child’s skin into their bladder. The needle is the same size as, or smaller than, those used to take blood.
- Your child’s urine is collected in a syringe attached to the needle, and then into a sterile container.
- The needle is taken out straight away and a small plaster put on your child’s skin.
“Supra” means above and “pubic” means the genital area, because the needle is put into the area above the genitals.
“Aspiration” means to remove by suction (sucking).