Constipated b/f 4 month old (Infant Gaviscon the culprit)

[gaelicsheep]

Not sure cool boiled water/massage is working. Do I need to get a laxative, or at 4 months could I try very diluted fruit juice. Which is the least bad option? She's been bunged for about 5 days I think, passing just 4 small pellets of orange "playdough" in that time, with much crying.

Bumping back into Active Convos

Sorry to hear your DD is suffering. I think you want to avoid giving anything other BM or at a push water to her at her age, their digestive system is so immature. Have you tried changing your diet at all? I drank bucket loads of fennel tea when I breastfed and while it didn't help her colic it did keep my DD regular.

I've re-read and actually 4 month may not be too young for juice but you might want to check with HV/Dr

I really do think it's the IG that's done it, rather than anything in my diet. She always had really runny poo before - nothing like this ever, not even when she was getting a bottle of formula a day. I reduced the dose of IG a couple of days ago and I've now stopped it altogether, but to no avail. I'll probably phone the GP for an appt tomorrow, but it's a 40 mile round trip.

my GP recommended a small teaspoon of fresh orange juice for my just over 3 month old gaviscon-stipated DS. It seemed to do the job - he poo-ed the same evening, although i can't be sure it was true 'cause and effect.' Quite a fruity smelling poo, though.

We've done it a couple of times since, when DS has been constipated, and in pain/unhappy. But we diluted the juice half and half with water, and this also seemed to work fine.My DS has had nothing else apart from breast milk at 14 weeks now, so I'm figuring that miniscule amount of orange juice won't have had a disastrous effect on him.

MY GP BF-ed her own 2 DDs, so is generally good for BF baby advice. She said it irritated the gut slightly, so helped to move things along.

Infant Gaviscon is notorious for causing constipation. Are you giving IG for reflux or for some other condition? There are many other meds for reflux that can be prescribed that don't have constipation as a side effect (domperidone was the med we used after IG just bunged up DD1 but didn't stop the reflux. Dom. did the trick though).

On the easing constipation front have you tried daisy chain massage (rub lots of little circles in a big circle about 2-3" out from the tummy button) or bicycling baby's legs?

Hi. Yes tried both today, but perhaps too early for an effect? The massage produced one little pop of smelly wind, no more.

She's on IG for reflux. After 4 days pretty much off IG I think some of the sickness might be returning, but she doesn't seem in pain like she was. I don't know if it's just a matter of time, or whether she might be outgrowing it anyway. I guess I'd better go back to the GP.

One thing I do wonder is that following advice in posts on this site and others, I only diluted the IG in 5 ml of water to give by syringe, not 15 ml. I wonder if that might have caused the problem?

I do remember doing the tummy massage whilst feeding DD and she fed a lot so I think we were doing it at least 5 times a day before we saw any effect. Good in a warm bath (espec. if tummy's under water too). Be prepared for a mess. At times we thought DD1 would only ever poo in the bath

I'm fairly certain that we diluted IG in 15mls of water as we fed it to DD1 in tiny bottles and 5 mls would have been easier to spoon feed rather than bottle feed.