Pediatric Pelvic Health

Pediatric pelvic health physiotherapy helps children whose bladder or bowel is not working the way it should — bedwetting, daytime accidents, constipation, urgency, or holding on for too long. These concerns are common, they are rarely anyone’s fault, and they usually respond well to the right guidance.

At SOMOM in Toronto’s High Park, assessment and treatment for children are always external and play-based — there is never an internal examination. The goal is to understand how your child’s bladder, bowel and pelvic floor muscles are working together, and to build gentle habits and exercises that help everything coordinate.

What we help with

• Bedwetting — nighttime wetting (nocturnal enuresis)
• Daytime wetting, leaks and sudden urgency
• Constipation, straining and withholding
• Soiling or bowel accidents (encopresis)
• Going to the bathroom very often, or not often enough
• Incomplete emptying and recurrent urinary tract infections with a functional cause
• Giggle incontinence — leaking with laughter

Why the pelvic floor matters for children

The same muscles that support the bladder and bowel have to relax to let them empty and tighten to hold on. In many children these muscles are simply uncoordinated — often alongside constipation, which is one of the most common reasons behind both daytime and nighttime wetting. Because the bladder and bowel share space and nerves, helping one usually helps the other.

How pediatric pelvic health physiotherapy helps

Treatment is education and habits first: healthy fluids and bathroom timing, comfortable positioning, and simple ways to relax and coordinate the pelvic floor. Where it helps, we use child-friendly tools such as breathing games, biofeedback and a home routine that parents and children can follow together. Care is paced to your child and coordinated with your family doctor or pediatrician rather than replacing them.

This is separate from our Pediatric Physiotherapy, which supports movement, milestones, torticollis, balance and coordination. Here the focus is specifically the bladder, bowel and pelvic floor.