Diet
To calculate how much formula your baby needs for supplementary feeding, you should weigh him before and after breastfeeding.
Basic principles of proper nutrition:
- The child must receive a sufficient amount of milk/formula to meet the physiological needs of the body. Children who are on mixed feeding need to normalize their diet and eliminate underfeeding and overfeeding. To know how much formula is needed for supplementary feeding, you should monitor how much the child eats on a scale.
- Since in children receiving breast milk, much depends on the mother’s diet, it is necessary to normalize her diet. It is recommended that a nursing woman avoid excessive consumption of proteins and fats, as they inhibit intestinal function, and, conversely, consume more dietary fiber. This means that you should limit the consumption of animal fats (fatty meat, butter, chicken, lard, pork fat, etc.), replacing them with vegetable oils.
In addition, a nursing woman needs to introduce foods into her diet that stimulate intestinal function:
- fermented milk products - kefir, yoghurt, cottage cheese, yogurt;
- foods containing a large amount of dietary fiber - vegetables, fruits, cereals, dried fruits, wholemeal bread;
- drink more fluids.
Considering that constipation in a baby can be a manifestation of food allergies and intolerance to certain foods, a nursing woman needs to exclude highly allergenic foods from her diet - cow's milk, nuts, fish, sweets, chocolate, i.e. those foods that children of the first year of life cannot tolerate. Food allergies are more common.
The most common mistake is that functional constipation is not an indication for transferring a child completely to artificial feeding, since this can only aggravate the problem!
What should a chair be like?
In the first three days of life, a newborn has viscous black stools without a distinct odor, reminiscent of tar. This is meconium - a mixture of amniotic fluid swallowed by the baby before birth, mucus and epithelium. There are no bacteria in it, so it has no odor. The appearance of meconium is evidence of the beginning of bowel function.
Attached to the breast on the first day, the baby still poops meconium, but the first “portions” of stool after emptying the intestines are grayish, gray-yellow and gray-green. This indicates that the baby’s stomach and intestines are getting used to breast milk. White feces may later indicate hepatitis and other serious diseases; You should definitely tell your doctor about it.
Subsequently - up to about 1 month - the stool becomes what it would normally be before the start of complementary feeding - watery, light yellowish in color, with a subtle smell of sour milk. The “artificial” stool is dense, the color is darker – yellow-brown, with an unpleasant odor. Formula is not completely digested because it does not contain enzymes and bacteria, like breast milk, which are necessary for complete digestion.
Introduction of complementary foods
The introduction of complementary feeding products into the diet of a child suffering from constipation must comply with the norms, which means no earlier than 4.5–5 months of age. The first thing that should be introduced into complementary feeding for this group of children is fruit juices with pulp (apple, plum, prune, apricot, etc.), fruit purees from the same products. Then you can add vegetable puree from zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli, pumpkin, carrots. Among porridges, preference should be given to buckwheat and corn (rice, oatmeal and semolina porridges help to consolidate stool, so they are prescribed for looser and more frequent stools in the baby).
From 6-7 months, the child can be given porridge with the addition of wheat and barley bran. When your baby starts eating solid foods, he needs enough fluids and fiber.
Standard options
Loose stools in a breastfed baby, as well as mushy, viscous, puree-like, and dense stools are the norm. Abnormal stools are excessively dense, hard lumps, when the child makes excessive efforts, strains hard to empty himself, and screams at the same time.
When the child begins to receive purees or juices, the stool changes again - from watery to very dense, from yellow to brown, with the smell of sour dairy products, fermented juice, or just a sharp unpleasant odor.
The color of a breastfed baby's stool is yellowish, mustard yellow or light brown. Changes in color indicate a change in the mother's diet, a change in the child's diet (with the introduction of complementary foods, and only then - about the disease. In children who drink water and receive breast milk, the stool is different from the stool of children who receive only milk and refuse food.
The beginning of complementary feeding turns the stool green (broccoli, cauliflower, apple), yellow (apricot, peach, carrot), brown and even black (prunes, black currants, blueberries). All this is normal and should not be a cause for concern given other good indicators.
Selecting formula milk
When mixed feeding, it is important to pay due attention to the choice of formula. For constipation, the mixture should be maximally adapted in terms of protein and fat content. It is necessary to choose a milk formula containing prebiotic oligosaccharides.
If the above measures do not help, then you will need a specialized milk formula, which is created for children with constipation - it contains lactulose and carob gluten. Its therapeutic effect is due to the fact that lactulose is not broken down and enters unchanged into the large intestine, where it serves as a breeding ground for lacto- and bifidobacteria that are beneficial to the body. As a result of these processes:
- the acid-base balance of the intestine changes;
- the acid produced stimulates intestinal receptors and thereby enhances peristalsis;
- more fluid is retained in the intestinal lumen.
The mixture with lactulose should be introduced gradually, bringing it to the required amount. It can be given in full or in a volume of 1/3–1/2 (400–800 ml), combined with the usual adapted formula and breast milk. The child needs a mixture with lactulose until the stool is completely normalized.
Other causes of constipation
If you have taken into account all our recommendations, but your child’s constipation does not go away, his well-being is suffering, you need to consult a doctor. Indeed, in addition to eating disorders, there are a number of other reasons that can lead to stool retention:
- neurogenic;
- inflammatory;
- psychogenic;
- improper intestinal development;
- toxic;
- stool may be delayed after an infectious disease;
- as a result of endocrine diseases - with insufficiency of thyroid function, diabetes mellitus, hypoestrogenemia, and note that these diseases very often cause constipation in young children;
- An increase in the intervals between bowel movements can be observed when using medications - anticonvulsants, antacids, diuretics, iron supplements, calcium supplements and barbiturates).
A tendency to constipation in children is caused by early introduction of formula milk, damage to the central nervous system if the child is born premature or immature, if there is food intolerance to certain foods, and intestinal dysbiosis.
Note to parents
Chamomile or fennel tea will help ease the process of bowel movements for the baby.
Dyschezia often occurs in infancy; this is when, during prolonged attempts to poop, the child becomes tense and screams. This behavior can last up to 20 minutes, after which good soft or even loose stools pass. This can be repeated up to several times a day during the first months of the baby’s life. All symptoms disappear spontaneously, without treatment; sometimes the pediatrician may recommend chamomile or fennel tea to the baby.
Infantile dyschezia is thought to result from the baby's inability to coordinate pressure within the tummy and relax the pelvic muscles.
Do not leave your child’s illnesses to chance. With the hope that everything will go away on its own, parents should always have increased vigilance regarding the health of their baby. Don’t be lazy once again to show your child to your local pediatrician and get a consultation with recommendations. After all, if you go to the doctor for advice and then don’t come, the doctor is sure that everything is back to normal for your baby.
Pediatrician E. O. Komarovsky talks about constipation in children:
What should a newborn baby's stool look like?
The baby should have a bowel movement for the first time approximately 12 hours after birth.
This stool is called original stool or meconium. This mass has a thick consistency and a dark green color. As a rule, meconium is excreted for two days, much less often for three. After this, the nature of the newborn’s stool begins to gradually change. Empties occur more frequently and the mass becomes heterogeneous. It may contain various lumps and mucus. The color will change from dark green to yellow, in some even white or watery. As a rule, on average, bowel movements occur six times a day. This stool is called transitional, and the condition is called transient intestinal catarrh. During this transition, beneficial microorganisms begin to appear in the intestines, because during pregnancy and immediately after birth, the baby's intestines were completely sterile.
During childbirth, the first microorganisms that were in the mother’s birth canal begin to appear in the child’s body. After this, the microflora will be formed due to the entry into the body of those microorganisms that are in the air and mother’s milk, on care items, and so on. When these microorganisms enter the intestines, they cause an inflammatory reaction, and, accordingly, transient intestinal catarrh. These processes are quite normal and play a very important role in the child’s adaptation to the environment.
About a week after birth, your stool will become more uniform. Such changes in the child’s body occur due to breastfeeding and the mother’s stay with the child.
It is very important that initially the baby is fed exclusively breast milk. After all, it is the milk and colostrum that a child receives in the first days after birth that is the key to the formation of a complete intestinal microflora. In order for the mother to produce a sufficient amount of milk, she needs to put the baby to her breast as often as possible. It is also worth remembering that a newborn baby should not be given water and it is not advisable to feed him formula, because they can disrupt the adaptation processes and cause intestinal problems.
