constipation

[lilypond1]

my 12week old daughter has suffered from constipation for ever!! i breastfeed throghout the day but give her 2 bottles overnight so we can all get some sleep!! the formula milk is a special transit milk and i also give her 150ml of water and fresh clementine juice, nothing seems to be working!HELP

Lilypond - huge sympathies! It is so hard to watch them struggle at this early stage with constipation . My dd has just turned 4 and has suffered from really slow transit and constipation since she was born - like you I was bf and using special formula for top ups and nothing helped so I do know how you are feeling at the moment!

I did find that MY cutting out dairy helped a bit with her ability to digest things, also my eating really really healthily made small incremental improvements (in my case giving up my pathetic vice of an occassional diet coke - sigh!). It does take a couple of weeks for this to effectively have any impact on your dd as it takes a while for the dairy to filter out of your system (and thus breast milk). I am no medic and I know some people say intolerances don't actually exist but I can say that cutting out dairy made life a lot easier in the poo department for my dd when she was so small!

Also your dd is still very young at the mo and her system is still maturing so it may be that her digestive system is taking a wee bit longer to kick start itself into getting into a suitable regular transit pattern. I think my dd started easing a bit when she was about 17 weeks (just had a look at her baby book to check, she was my first so I kept scary meticulous (demented) notes - luckily my ds was fine in this department as by the time he came along my note taking was way less thorough - bad mummy )

I have to admit that in the end my daughter ended up on a regimen of movicol (but she was about 18 months or so when this started if I remember rightly). By using movicol each day and then slowly tailing off the doses over a period of months it managed to speed up her own system to process by itself at the right sort of speed.

Opinion is I think divided on movicol - some people find that their lo's end up going too far the other way but I guess this may be a problem with correct dosage? All I can say is that my dd now only occassionally has movicol and is now spookily regular and doesn't struggle at all - but it has been a loooong process!

Good luck with it all - I hope your dd is feeling better soon - maybe go speak to your HV or dr if it is causing her too much distress?

Lilypond - again huge sympathies ! My DD was constipated from birth - only went once a week as a newborn ! I was in tears many times watching her struggle. I would suggest speaking to your HV/GP sooner rather than later - my DD went onto Lactulose and Senna syrup at (i think !) 6 months - - she is 5 now, so it's all a bit of a distant memory - they definitly helped but it was not great for years - it is only now that we are seeing improvement - with hindsight , I think i should have asked for a referral to hospital for stronger medication which might have sorted this out sooner - good luck - it is a problem that is much more distressing than people realise xx

thanks for all your support! i have been to the pediatrician 3 times and each time they tell me to give her water, i do, and give her fresh orange juice, i do that aswell, i was thinking of giving her organic prune juice watered down with hépar water(we live in france!)is she too young for prune juice, i think it can be quite potent! also i dont know what DD and DS are?! and most of the other abbreviations aswell!! what is movicol?

not to worry the abbreviations got me when I first joined mn (mumsnet) dd is dear daughter and ds is dear son, they used to have a link thing at the top you could click onto for a list - got to admit I only know the really common abbreviations (hv being health visitor).

We use movicol paediatric (spelling??) which is a presription powder stuff that is added either to milk or water - it is for small children with either chronic constipation or fecal impaction (I just read that on the box!). It is basically a paediatric laxative which works over a long period (according to the info in the box small children with chrinic constipation usually follow a plan for about 6-12 months). It explains usual dosage and only starts at 2 years so probably not appropriate for your daughter yet! The very helpful leaflet also gives its tradename in lots of countries (it is all movicol!) but does not list France so not sure if you can get it even if your daughter was old enough.

One of the things I was always told when my daughter was under a year and I was bf (breastfeeding) was that 'bf babies rarely get constipated - it is not until you introduce formula and food that they constipate' - It always annoyed me as dd was bf and was moooost definitely constipated! But maybe it is right and maybe it is that she is having trouble with something that you are eating and thus getting into your milk? Also check the formula you are using - I know one of the common culprits for constipation in formula is the amount of iron they put in - if it is iron fortified then maybe it is that that is causing problems?

Good luck - it WILL get better as she gets older but I think if it is still worrying you then you need to go back as many times as it takes. Before having my dc (dear children - wow for someone who can barely manage to text messages I feel I know a lot of these abbreviations ) I rarely visited the doctors, now I know the first names of all the doctors receptionists - and I am not a hypochondriac - it is just that especially with small children who can't tell you how they feel you just need the reassurance more often!

Meant to say - you might want to have a look at the website patient.co.uk here is the link for helpful information (it explains about different types of laxatives used for children if you search for constipation babies and then clickon the leaflet thing). My doctor recommended it as it has the same information they get.

Prune juice might be a bit much for her to drink, but if you can drink it and deal with the consequences it will be present in your milk. Pharmacist warned me about it when I was bf-ing.

if you can get either probiotics or live yoghurt and add to your diet it may help her constipation. Probiotics (which are also in live yoghurt) are very effective for digestive problems.

thanks everyone, i now have loads of options to try!! will let you all know how we get on!!