About 80 to 95 percent of all cases are retentive encopresis. Children with this disorder have an underlying medical reason for soiling.
Retentive encopresis is most often the result of chronic constipation and fecal impaction. In these children, feces have become impacted in the child's colon, causing it to distend. This causes the child to not feel the urge to defecate.
The anal sphincter muscle becomes weak and unable to contain the soft stools that pass around the impaction. Despite the constipation, these children actually do have regular, though soft, bowel movements that they are unable to control.
The child may not even be aware that he or she has defecated until the fecal matter has already passed. Many children have a history of constipation that extends back as far as five years before the problem is brought to medical attention. |
