Why holding your pee, unsafe abortion damage kidneys —Expert

An expert in kidney diseases, Dr Yemi Raji has warned Nigerians against holding their urine to prevent urinary tract infection, a reason some people end up with a kidney problem.

Raji, a consultant nephrologist at University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, stated that when urine stays collected for too long in the bladder, the possibility of urinary tract infection setting in is higher.

According to him, “the urinary tract is what takes urine out of the kidney. So when there is an infection of any part of the urinary tract and it is not treated on time, it can spread to the kidneys.

“When the infection is not treated on time, it becomes recurrent or persistent, and causing damages to the kidney which could be a permanent damage and not actually a transient one.”

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Dr Raji, who said the teaching is that people should ensure they urinate when they have the urge and promptly, said developing such a habit will also help prevent individuals developing urinary tract infection.

The medical doctor also warned that women that undergo unsafe abortion may also end up with a kidney problem.

According to him, complications of unsafe abortion such as excessive bleeding and infection had been identified as a reason for kidney problem in some women.

“Sometimes when some products are retained in the womb after the abortion, this could cause a lot of havoc, including excessive bleeding.

“With excessive bleeding, the blood pressure drops and there is no supply of blood to the kidneys. As a result, the organ can fail.

“Secondly the retained products can lead to an infection in the womb. The infection can eventually spread to other organs of the body including the kidney, causing kidney damage.”

The expert added that unsafe abortion tends to cause more of acute kidney injury, a rapid unset kidney damage that could be reversed through appropriate treatment when diagnosed early.

According to World Health Oganisation (WHO), at least, 36.8 million Nigerians are suffering from various forms of kidney diseases. Regrettably, early kidney disease has no signs or symptoms, as such people may not feel any different until the disease is very advanced.

Experts have identified risk factor for a chronic kidney to include excessive alcoholism, lack of physical exercises, smoking and use of certain harmful chemicals for house fumigation.

Others are untreated microbial infections especially urinary tract infections (UTI), diarrhoea, malaria, hepatitis, Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), diabetes, hypertension, and abuse of painkillers/analgesics, especially paracetamol.