Hypospadias is an abnormality that occurs in male children’s urethra. It causes the urethra tube to be located underside of a child’s penis. Hypospadias is a congenital abnormality present at birth, meaning the malformation occurs while the foetus is developing in the womb. The child’s urethra does not grow to completion while the fetus is the womb causing lack of foreskin underside of the penis. In case you notice an abnormality on your baby’s penis visit a pediatric hypospadias surgeon for correction of the condition.
Treatment
Some forms of hypospadias might be minor requiring no surgery, but others require surgery to reposition the opening of the urethra and straighten the penis. Surgery should be done when your child is six to twelve months. Do not circumcise your child if the penis does not look normal. Treat for hypospadias first before your child is circumcised.
Surgery
In most children with hypospadias condition, they get well after undergoing one surgery, but in some cases, some children need more than one surgery to correct the defect. The procedure is simple, and the condition may be fixed at one session. The surgeon may use tissue grafts from the foreskin or from the mouth to correct the hypospadias condition. The surgery repair involves creating the rest of the penis urethra tube that did not form at the tip of the penis, moving the urethra tube from underside of the penis to the top of the penis, straightening the shaft of the penis if curved. Your child will be given anaesthesia for the process.
Hypospadias surgery rarely fails. It is successful in most of the cases. Your child’s penis will look normal after the surgery, and they can urinate normally and reproduce. The wound after surgery takes less time to heal and does not leave scars. In case complications occur after the surgery such as urine leakage, visit another surgery to check the problem and treat it.
After the surgery is successful, you need to visit the clinic to check for healing and any complications. You can do follow-ups till your child is at the puberty stage.
Preparations for the surgery
When correcting the hypospadias condition, most boys do not have a memory of what happened. Your child will be put to sleep by use of anaesthesia. They help the child’s body to be relaxed during the surgery. It will help if you do preparations for your child before the surgery day. Your nurse will give you guidelines on what your child can eat or drink in preparation for the surgery.
For the children older than one year, do not feed any solid food or non-clear liquids past midnight if they have surgery the next day. For children under one year, give formula up to six hours before the surgery and breastfeed your baby up to four hours before the surgery. Do not feed your child anything two hours to surgery.
If your child has any other special needs, please let your doctor know before the surgery.
