Why Would Child with Renal Failure Develop Sexual Development

Q: My son suffers from Renal Failure. And I thought he might experience some kind of sexual development problem. Is the Renal Failure responsible for that, or just something else? If the problem does induced by Renal Failure, then is there anything that can help?

A: According to the brief introduction you gave me, it seems very likely that your kid develops sexual development. If it is caused by the Kidney Failure, then there are things we could help you.

Renal Failure is a pretty complicated disease. Many kidney diseases can lead to the occurrence of Kidney Failure. Grow-ups with the disease could be affected their sexual abilities, to say nothing of children or teenagers. We have to admit that Kidney Failure, to some extent, would lead to some kind of sex problems. However, this is not an absolute.

As for whether the disease affects child’s sexual development, well, it depends. It depends on not only the age of onset, but also other factors such as environment or something like that. The disease complicates nutritional or metabolic matters may affect hormones in kids’ body. The hormones are exactly the indispensable factors involved in children’s growth or sexual development. What’s more, medications you’ve taken, dialysis the kids received, or the chemotherapy they once took also contributes to the development.

Kids with Renal Failure are usually shorter or smaller than other children their age. In some cases, the development slows down while others may stop. Teenage girls don’t have periods, while boys experience same trouble just like your son. After knowing all these, what can we do to help?

First things first. Take your kid go run some test or exams. Before any treatments are recommended, the doctor would rather see the reports and figure out the reasons after reading the lab reports. As parents, we must fight our impulse to protect them from all those sufferings and pain. But independence, sexual identity, self-esteem along with self-worth is necessary as well as important for the kids. They need support and protect indeed; more importantly, they need to make this with your supporting.