Bowel management care at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital
GI doctors and surgeons at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital treat children with chronic constipation and fecal incontinence. We provide personalized care plans that may include medications, enemas or dietary changes. Our goal is to help your child consistently empty stool and eliminate stooling accidents to stay clean, comfortable and confident.
Would my child benefit from bowel management care?
Children who need bowel management care may have symptoms of constipation or incontinence from the following conditions:
- Behavioral conditions (withholding, toilet aversion, developmental delay)
- Idiopathic or functional constipation (constipation with an unidentifiable cause)
- Previous surgical repair of imperforate anus (or anorectal malformation)
- Previous pull-through procedure for Hirschsprung disease
- Spinal cord anomalies or injuries (spina bifida, tethered cord, sacrococcygeal teratoma)
Our multidisciplinary team includes pediatric gastroenterologists, pediatric surgeons, colorectal surgeons, rehabilitation therapists, psychologists and neurosurgeons. We focus on your family’s goals and work with you and your child to develop an individualized treatment plan. We provide support and engage families in shared decision-making to ensure your child gets the right care at the right time.
During your child’s first bowel management evaluation, our nurses teach you about your child’s condition, perform a physical exam and recommend tests or imaging. After your child’s appointment, we help you monitor your child’s bowel habits and recommend changes as needed.
We communicate with families by phone, email, online (telehealth), and other methods. We treat many children outside of Indianapolis and understand that traveling for appointments can be difficult for families. Our care team offers telehealth visits for follow-up appointments where your child can receive the same quality of care from the comfort of your home.