ABC Listen.
Hello, I'm Nidge.
And right now on Imagine This, I am busting for the toilet.
It feels like your abdomen is full.
I'm like my whole body is going to explode.
It feels like I need to do a dance.
Yeah, maybe if I do a little wee wiggle across my legs.
That might take my mind off it.
It would probably just be your pants.
Tinkle tinkle.
It makes your wee wee come out.
That's not helping.
You should go to the parkland.
Come to think of it, we've had a couple of questions about wee.
I'm Soph and I'm four years old.
And I'm Ted and I'm seven years old.
My name's Samara and I'm five years old.
My name's Donna.
I'm five years old.
And we want to know, why do we need to pee?
How does water turn into wee?
Those are some wee-ly good questions.
And I know someone who can answer them.
Dr Shradha Kotwal.
She's a doctor that knows all about kidneys.
That's the part of our body that makes wee.
Let's talk to Dr Schrader.
Yep, right after I pop to the loo.
Excuse me!
Coming through!
Bladder emergency!
Ah, that's better.
Hi Nidge.
Hi Dr Cottrell.
Hi Shawana.
Hi everyone.
We're in the park.
Lovely day isn't it?
I thought we should spend it outside.
I can see lots of trees.
There's a playground.
Birds are drinking from that water fountain.
That one looks super thirsty.
It's important to drink water for all of us, birds too, especially on hot days.
It'll make them need to wee.
Do birds wee?
Birds do wee.
Birds' wee is mixed with their poo.
Mm-hmm.
Fish and frogs and mammals, reptiles, all wee.
What would a polar bear's wee come out like?
It would probably come out like ice cubes.
No!
We were hoping you could help us out with some questions about we.
Of course.
How does water turn into we?
Why do we need the we?
I can definitely help you with your questions.
So to find out about how our human bodies turn water into we, It might be best to start at the beginning of the journey.
Where?
In a cool, refreshing glass of water.
Fancy a quick dip?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Definitely.
Okay, let's imagine ourselves really tiny.
How tiny?
Really, really tiny.
Whoa!
Whoa!
We're in the glass of water.
This feels nice.
Let's play mermaid!
Go, Peter!
That's a cool trick.
Look at me.
I'm doing doggy paddling.
So I can dive and spin around under.
Good job.
Don't get too comfortable.
We won't be here long.
What's happening now?
We're being swallowed.
We're going down the esophagus.
That's the tube that connects your mouth to your stomach.
We're in the tummy.
It's a bit slimy.
All those bits of chewed up food in here.
Carrots?
Yum.
Don't eat that.
Someone already has.
We've been here before.
Yeah.
This is where food and water go after you've eaten.
Then it gets mixed up with stomach juices so it's easier to digest.
That's right.
Then it all moves down a long tube called the small intestine.
Your intestines break down your food with, I think, these acids called enzymes.
Woo-hoo!
We're on the move in the small intestine.
This is so cool.
It's so long and tuby.
It's just like a... Who was that?
Nidge, where did he go?
He got sucked through the intestinal wall.
Hello?
Where'd everyone go?
Anyone?
Where am I?
I'm right behind you.
Where are we now?
Welcome to the bloodstream.
I thought we were in water, not blood.
Whoa.
Your blood is made up of about 50 water about half and it's always being pumped around your body by your heart.
Now that we're in the bloodstream, where are we going?
We're flowing to the heart.
Up and around the shoulder.
Picking up some oxygen at the lungs.
Yeah, it keeps us alive, helps us to move.
And meeting up with blood that has been everywhere else in the body.
We're heading down now.
What's something shaped like a bean?
Is there a giant bean in the body?
It's not a bean.
It's a kidney.
Your kidneys are about the size of your fist and most people have two of them.
They sit in your lower back on either side of your spine.
And yeah, they are shaped like a bean.
After water has been taken through your stomach, intestines and into the blood, the kidney is the next step on our journey from water to wee.
Make your urine, I think, by cleaning blood.
That's right.
Like a washing machine.
A special wee mixer.
Kinda.
And then, wee!
Blood gets pumped into the kidneys all the time.
They're hard workers, these kidneys.
They clean every drop of blood in your body almost every hour.
Yeah, with more and more tunnels branching off.
The blood moves through these tiny branching tunnels.
It's getting smaller.
It's getting squishy and out.
We can't fit.
This is a nephron, the workhorse of the kidney.
It's like a little sieve that filters out the waste and lets stuff you need back into the bloodstream.
There are over one million of these tiny nephrons inside your kidneys that clean your blood.
Blood goes in and wee comes out.
Really?
But wee doesn't look anything like blood.
I think they're clean.
Yep.
All the stuff that makes our blood red stays in the bloodstream.
So that's all the red blood cells, plus the cells that we need to keep our immune system strong and all the vitamins and proteins that our bodies get from the food we eat.
What gets filtered out?
The leftover stuff.
Our bodies don't need the extra salt, the vitamins you have enough of and a waste molecule called urea that your liver makes from breaking down proteins.
Urea?
Sounds like urine?
Yes.
It's just a little bit of urea though.
Most of our urine, our wee, is just water.
You've got to be kidding me.
Get it?
Like, kidding me?
It's all in the delivery.
All right, time to squeeze through.
We're going to the bathrobe.
Is it wee now?
Almost.
After the blood goes through all the nephrons, it travels along tiny tubules.
Hey look, things are being sucked through the walls of the tubes.
This is when the body starts to take back any more of those vitamins or cells it wants to keep.
Stuff that got through the start of the nephron but your body could still use.
Whoop, there goes some vitamin C and some of the Bs.
B1 and B2.
The bananas in pyjamas?
No, not the bananas.
They're vitamins.
That's thiamine and riboflavin.
The main thing your body wants to hang onto is water.
Don't we just wee at times?
No.
Water is precious, and the body tries to keep enough flowing to keep you hydrated at all times.
Ah, so you don't wee out all the water you drink.
Nope.
Having the right amount of water in your body is very important.
I think like 70% of the body is made of liquid water.
That's why your skin is a bit soft.
You need to keep hydrated.
It's not like the water will stay in your belly forever.
Because if you go out in the sun, you start sweating.
And sweating is the water you've actually drunk.
So you drink water to replace your sweat.
Absolutely.
But it also helps to keep your heart happy.
Your heart has a much harder time pumping your blood around if you don't have enough water in your body.
Let's keep heading through the tubules.
To the left.
To the right.
Now the blood has been cleaned and all the blood cells have been taken back to the bloodstream, along with all the other good stuff like water and vitamins.
It's looking more like we now. smelling more like we now too.
After winding its way through all the tubules, the waste and excess water drains into the bladder through a tube called the ureter.
Do we have to go to the bladder?
That's where all the wee is.
Let's get in a canoe.
Great idea.
I'll just imagine one up.
Oh, sweet canoe nudge.
Alright, hop in everyone.
Keep your hands and feet inside the canoe at all times.
Oh, it's dark in here.
The walls are really thick and tough.
We're in the bladder.
And it's where the pee goes.
There's a lot of wee down here.
It's sort of like a muscly balloon.
It inflates as wee comes in and then deflates after you've gone to the toilet.
It's muscly?
You bet.
The bladder needs to be strong enough to hold on to all the wee.
This wee looks nice and clear.
What makes wee different colours?
Yellow or clear.
The colour depends on how much water you've had.
Remember, water is precious, so your body won't let too much go if you don't have enough to spare.
So you can tell if you've drunk enough water by the colour of your wee.
When your wee's level, that means you're not drinking enough water.
It tells you, stop, you have to drink more water.
Yep, that's it.
If it's a light yellow colour, That means your body has enough water to make nice, watery wheat.
But if your wee is dark yellow, it means you haven't been drinking enough water and the waste is more concentrated than it should be.
What if it's blue?
What if it's red?
Or green?
It might mean you ate something red, like beetroot, or something blue, like a big blue lollipop.
Or it could mean there's something wrong.
So if your wee is an unusual colour, it's good to tell your trusted grown-up.
What's that sound?
Once the bladder is full, your brain tells your body it's time to go to the bathroom.
Oh, yep.
I know that feeling.
We should all listen to our bodies when we feel the need.
It's not good to tire out the muscles.
Yeah, that's when you feel like you're busting.
Let's get out of here.
I don't want to end up in a toilet bowl.
Yeah, me neither.
Let's go.
Oh, that was close.
Yeah.
So Shrider, are my kidneys cleaning my blood and making wee right now?
Yep, our kidneys work super hard.
If you ask me, they're the hardest workers in the body, so it's a good idea to take care of them.
How can we do that?
Everyday exercise, eat healthy, drink water and eat vegetables.
Spot on.
The best way to look after your kidneys is to drink enough water, not fizzy drink or juice.
Don't eat too much salty food and get enough exercise to keep your blood pumping well around your whole body.
Thanks for teaching us all about how wee is made, Trudder.
In fact, I think I have to go again right now.
Again?
No, well, I've been drinking water.
This is going to the bathroom.
There's a bathroom there.
You don't need to hold it.
Ah, phew.
Back in a tick.
So Ted, Soph, Dana and Samara, when we drink water, it travels down our throats.
The esophagus.
To land in the stomach.
And the belly.
It then moves through the small intestine. where it gets absorbed into the bloodstream.
It goes all around your body.
Until the blood gets to the kidneys.
They clean your blood like a washing machine.
When blood moves through the kidneys, all the stuff the body can use stays in the bloodstream.
Water.
Vitamins.
Blood cells.
And the waste is separated out.
Binethyls.
This filtered waste, along with the extra water, travels down tubes called ureters into the bladder.
That feels like a balloon.
When your bladder is full, your body tells you it's time to go.
Our kidneys are working all the time to keep the blood in our bodies clean and healthy.
Thanks kidneys!
And you can look after your kidneys in return.
Drink water.
Don't eat salty stuff.
It makes you thirsty.
And of course, when you need to go, go!
