Pumping Baby With Chinese Herbs And Coconut Water To Flush Out Bacteria From Her Urinary Tract System

One of my blog readers commented in my blog that I should get some herbs to clear Baby's urinary tract system of bacteria from the Chinese Medicine Hall. Well, I sent the hubs to buy a few packets of Chinese herbs from the Chinese Medicine Hall and have them boiled immediately. After a day of drinking the Chinese herbs, coconut water (which is also well known for treating UTI) and lots of plain water, Baby's urine turned from cloudy+foul smelling to clear+no foul smell.

Today, I boiled another packet of herbs, fed Baby with Refresh from E. Excel (this is also good for the urinary tract) and continued coaxing her to drink lots of fluids.

Getting her to pee at very regular intervals throughout the day is also very important as bacteria will be flushed out through the urine.


This packet of herbs that cleanses the urinary tract system cost RM8 and consists of san soke yee mai (popped barley), sweet corn husk, a kind of bean that resembles red bean, some leaves, twigs and herbs.


The pot of herbs. Thank God Baby has no problem gulping down the herbal water.

I also fed Baby with crushed echinacea (1/2 a tablet divided into 3 feedings a day), which I added into her milk.

On top of all these herbs and anti-UTI supplements, I have also been feeding Baby with Waterfall D-Mannose with 1/2 a teaspoon every 3 hourly. E.Coli bacteria attaches to D-Mannose very well and gets flushed out from the urinary tract system with the urine. However this time as with the previous time, Baby is attacked by Klebsiella. Klebsiella attaches to D-Mannose too though more difficult.

From my observation with Baby for the past 1 week, her urine will be clear and odor-free during the day as she drinks lots of fluids. However at night, her urine will smell a tad foul. The more fluids she drinks, the clearer and lesser odor her urine gets. I had tried to wake Baby up in the wee hours of the morning to drink water but all hell broke loose and nothing would make her open her mouth.

I believe that there is still a little bacteria lurking in Baby's urinary tract system. I have to continue feeding her with the Chinese herbs, coconut water, Refresh and Waterfall D-Mannose. I hope that very soon all the bacteria will be completely flushed out from Baby's urinary tract.

... to be continued.

Baby's 1st Post-Surgery UTI And Needs Hospitalization

...but she's on home leave, which means the doctor has given us consent to bring her home. However, I have to bring Baby to the hospital 3x a day for antibiotics jabs. This is Baby's first UTI since her Ureteral Reimplantation surgery more than 6 months ago. Both the surgeon and I are perplexed as to why Baby would get a UTI since the post-surgery MCUG scan in August 2009 showed that she has no more Kidney Reflux. I am suspecting that the UTI is caused by her swimming in the pool at Hard Rock Hotel Penang 2 weeks ago. Our paed told us that public pools during public holidays / school holidays are the dirtiest as they are flooded with people and the hotel maintenance staffers may not have ample time to clean the pool.

Long story cut short, Baby was braver this time. She screamed and bawled for a short while when the paed inserted the IV line on her left hand. It was quite a fast one and took under 15 minutes for everything to be completed - finding the vein, IV line inserted and hand bandaged. In the past, her doctors needed at least half an hour to over an hour to fix the line. Baby even allowed the doctor to carry her after the procedure, which was very, very uncommon of her to allow a doctor / nurse to carry her, what more the doctor who had just poked her, swaddled her so tightly with a cloth and caused her so much pain. I guess preparing her mentally before the procedure helped.

Before she went into the procedures room, while we were waiting in our room for the doctor to arrive, I told her this "Baby, the doctor will give you an injection on your hand. There will be very little pain, please don't cry ok? Mummy will wait for you outside the room. Mummy can't go in. You don't cry ok? Mummy loves you" Baby nodded her head and smiled!

Baby has to be in the hospital again for her 2nd antibiotics jab for today. She needs another jab at 10:30pm tonight.

UTI Preventive Measures

1. Drink plenty of fresh clean water and barley water, up to 10 glasses a day if you can. Drinking plenty of water will flush out the bacteria and other micro-organisms which can cause bladder cystitis and chronic UTI. Barley water is very good in cleansing the bladder. My baby drinks barley water everyday after her Ureteral Reimplantation surgery and thank God, she has not gotten any UTI attacks.

2. Don’t resist or ignore the need to urinate! If you need to go - then go! Holding it back can lead to Urinary Tract Infection symptoms. Potty training your baby/toddler at an early age will help reduce the risk of UTI. Also train your child to 'double pee' or double micturition each time he/she pees. The lesser the urine in the bladder, the lesser the risk for bacteria to breed.

3. (Ladies in particular) Avoid douching with scented sprays which irritate and lead to recurrent bladder infections. Do not use baby bath / shampoo to wash your baby's / kids' genitals. The chemicals in the shampoo will irritate the genitals. Also try to avoid using wet wipes on your child's genitals.

4. Wash your genital area before and (particularly) after sex. Also try to urinate before and after. This can avoid the transfer of UTI bacteria between partners and could flush out any bladder cystitis bugs that got through

5. (Ladies in particular) Take a shower instead of a bath, this prevents the possible entry of bacteria into the urethra (a cause of Chronic UTI / Cystitus)

6. (Ladies in particular) After a bowel movement, always wipe yourself from front to back, this prevents the entry of bacteria from the anus into the vagina and thence into the urethra.

7. (Ladies in particular) Avoid tight, thick underwear, as this creates the perfect hot and humid atmosphere which bladder cystitis bacteria need in order to breed.

8. Avoid known bladder irritants such as citrus fruits and juice, tomatoes, mature cheese, chocolate, spicy foods, alcohol or nicotine. These are all known irritants.

9. Avoid caffeine - most commonly found in coffee, tea, carbonated drinks, chocolates etc…

10. If you feel the onset of urinary tract infection symptoms or bladder cystitis, take vitamin C as a drink or a tablet. This increases the level of acidity in the urine, which some urinary experts believe helps in reducing the number of chronic uti bacteria in the urinary tract.


11. If you have a painful urinary tract infection or chronic cystitis infection, and cannot immediately obtain urinary tract infection treatment, you can ease the pain by applying a hot-pad, a hot water bottle, or something similar to your abdomen.

12. Spices like cinnamon or juniper can act as natural UTI antibiotics for a mild bladder infection, and can also help to flush out a urine infection from kidneys and bladder.

Kidney Reflux, UTI And Prevention Of UTI

My 15-month old toddler has been having bacteria in her urine almost all her life. She was first diagnosed as suffering from UTI when she was 7 weeks old. She had high fever, vomitting, loss of appetite and was listless. Her pee also smelled terribly foul, like some rotten fish. I kind of expected her to get UTI when our paed broke the diagnosis to us as our Ob & Gyn detected that our fetus had a dilated right kidney when I was about 14 weeks pregnant with her.

Since she was 7 weeks old, my baby girl has had countless urine samples taken, endless trips to the hospitals, countless number of pokes, pricks and prodes on her hands and feet, a daily dose of prophylactic antibiotics (which by the way, those pesky bacteria has already become resistant to, but our doctors are still of the opinion that she should continue eating the antibiotics), countless number of scans (from ultrasound scans to MCUG to MAG 3 scan) and 2 months ago, she had a Ureteral Reimplantation surgery done to fix the problem.

We had found out from one of the many scans that our baby has a duplex right kidney, in addition to a Grade III kidney reflux on the right kidney. Thank God that her left kidney is spared from kidney reflux. A MAG 3 scan showed that her right duplex kidneys are still functioning pretty well, praise the Lord!

In May this year, my baby underwent a 5-hour Ureteral Reimplantation surgery to fix her ureters which were very dilated. We were told that the surgery went well but our baby developed a complication after the surgery. She developed an adhesive intestinal obstruction and she kept vomitting for 2 weeks. Adhesive intestinal obstruction is a documented complication of any abdominal surgery. She was suffering and had lost a lot of weight. Everything that she ate and drank came out from her mouth. The vomit was greenish stuff and that sure wasn't a good sign. Her tummy looked distended and she had fever which would not subside. Her 2-week stay in the hospital was like living hell for her and me and I pray that she never ever have to go through this again, ever. There were tubes everywhere on her body and a nasogastric tube (NG tube) on her nose. Keeping the NG tube on her nose was a challenge as my baby kept trying to pull it off. Long story cut short, she had another surgery 2 weeks after the primary surgery to fix the gut problem.

Over the past one year, I have tried many products that are supposedly well-known for preventing UTIs and to fight infections but sadly, none of those worked. My baby had bacteria (with colony counts of greater than 100,000) detected in her pee every single month. At times, none of the safe antibiotics were sensitive to those pesky bugs as those bugs have become resistant to almost all the antibiotics. With prayers and by forcing gallons of water down my baby's throat, those bacteria were eventually flushed out from her body.

Even after the Ureteral Reimplantation surgery, there was still bacteria (Klebsiella) detected in my baby's pee. I was really devastated and lost hope. For days, I did a lot of research over the internet to read up more on UTI prevention and discovered D-Mannose. I was really doubtful about D-Mannose as I've never heard of this name. I was apprehensive that all the positive reviews and comments about how effective D-Mannose is in treating and preventing UTI were only marketing gimmick and tactics. But what I had was only hope and I decided to send an email to a company in the UK that sells D-Mannose online. The owners were kind enough to send me 3 tubs of D-Mannose. With a tad doubt, I still fed my baby with it.

Today is almost 1.5 weeks since I fed my baby with D-Mannose and all the classic symptoms of bacteria in her pee had sort of vanished. No more smelly pee, no more red and sore labia and no more purging. Her pee also looked clear. I shall continue to feed my baby with D-Mannose in the hope that it can prevent those pesky bugs from invading my poor baby's urinary tract.

On top of D-Mannose, I am also feeding my baby with barley water everyday, fresh coconut water, E-Excel's Millenium (cactus juice), Manuka honey, boiled lemon grass water and lots of water to flush out those pesky bugs from her body.

My baby's next post-operative MCUG scan is scheduled for end of next month. I am praying hard that it will show NO MORE kidney reflux.