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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Original poster

Bf and newborn poo

27 replies

friendofalurker · 19/04/2011 08:45

ok my friend has her lovely new ds and i am posting for her on her request, her ds is 10 days old and has done the meconium poo thing and finished all that last Thursday. She is Bfeeding and he hasnt done a poo since Thursday (which was meconium). Anyway she is a bit worked up as the mw is coming out tomorow and has said he better have had one..... I said id post and look fwd to some reassurance as mine are alot older and i cant remember all this for her.... she is eating fruit and said hes a bit unsettled this am so perhaps brewing one??

OP posts:
nannyl · 19/04/2011 08:48

it is normal for BF babies to not poo for many days in a row.
(also normal for several times a day / daily / anywhere in between, but it can be more than a week)

Its just mean her milk suits him perfectly so there is very little waste

Original poster
friendofalurker · 19/04/2011 08:49

thanks that will do me - i said that yesterday that perhaps her stuff is so good thereisno waste! ace

OP posts:
Albrecht · 19/04/2011 08:53

Has he done a yellow mustardy poo or just meconium? Older bf babies can go ages without a poo as they use up so much of the milk, so there is little to go to waste.

But with a newborn I would be worried. Has he lost a lot of weight? Weeing lots (you can put cotton wool ball in disposable nappy to check it is getting wet)?

hv told me to give spoon of fresh orange juice if constipated but I was a bit Hmm

Albrecht · 19/04/2011 08:54

But this baby is only 10 days old.

YouMustBeYolking · 19/04/2011 08:58

Personally I would be worried about this lack of poo. Whilst it is true that older babies may poo less this is less likely in a newborn.

DS was admitted to hospital when little and there was a young baby there who had no passed anything other than meconium and was being investigated for Hirschsprungs disease. I would be pushing to be seen sooner.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002125/

Original poster
friendofalurker · 19/04/2011 09:02

meconium, he had lost a load of weight but it turned out when they were readmitted last friday that at birth he was weighed in 2 towels - yes really. Nappies wet, he gets re weighed tomorrow.

OP posts:
YouMustBeYolking · 19/04/2011 09:02

not

I don't want to alarm with post above, it was just as soon as I read it I thought back to that little baby. Please filter me on behalf of your friend.

Albrecht · 19/04/2011 09:07

If there hasn't been yellow poo this means milk hasn't travelled all the way through the system. He may be just fine but better to be cautious with a newborn.

How do they know he was weighed with 2 towels?

Original poster
friendofalurker · 19/04/2011 09:12

He looked smaller than the weight he was given at birth which was commented on by the visitors, community midwifes etc , when readmitted the differnce was the same as 2 towels which they are wrapped in as standard, the student midwife isnt so sure. This is her 3rd child all be it a bit of a gap between this and the last two.

OP posts:
Albrecht · 19/04/2011 09:19

If this was me I would want him thoroughly checked by the hospital, just in case.

narmada · 19/04/2011 10:03

Definitely needs to be checked by someone who knows their stuff. I think no yellow poo since birth in a 10 day old baby would not be considered normal. It's good that he has passed something since birth, as I think that makes hirschprungs less likely, but it's very likely he's not getting enough milk, which needs to be addressed with skilled support.

Let us know how your friend gets on.

cocoachannel · 19/04/2011 10:05

My DD who is now 7 weeks, passed her meconium then nothing for ten days. I rang the hospital after 48 hours and they said there was nothing to worry about and it is very common. I visited my GP a few days later for something related to me, and he was emphatic that it is normal and that lots of people become worried due to the misinformation handed out re. £2 coin sized poos etc.

From 10 days to about 5 weeks she passed the mustardy coloured poo once a week. For the last fortnight she has dirty nappies 2 or 3 times in a 24 hour period.

Having said that, obviously if she's worried she should visit the hospital, but I wouldn't want her to be unduly terrified that something is wrong.

narmada · 19/04/2011 10:11

I remember posting something similar about my DS when he was tiny, and I think Tiktok responded, saying that it could be normal although that stooling pattern in a tiny baby was unusual. I could be mis-remembering, but in DS's case, he wasn't feeding effectively: he had a tongue tie and some other issues.

It's very very normal for older BF babies to go days, even weeks, sometimes without pooing, but not so common in tiny babies IIRC.

narmada · 19/04/2011 10:14

This from the Jack Newman website:

"Any baby between five and 21 days of age who does not pass at least one substantial bowel movement within a 24 hour period should be seen at the breastfeeding clinic the same day. If this same baby is soaking at least 6 heavy wet diapers (see #3, Urination), then baby is most likely fine and getting enough. Generally, small, infrequent bowel movements during this time period mean insufficient intake. There are definitely some exceptions and everything may be fine, but it is better to check."

NonnoMum · 19/04/2011 10:18

My 3rd baby did meconium then NOTHING for 12 days... We were being investigated by the paed at the hospital when he let rip whilst being examined... We got our coats...

(Some people get very concerned about lack of poo - one more experienced MW told me her record was a 14 day no-pooer)

Good luck.

matana · 19/04/2011 10:19

Yes, could be normal, but also could be abnormal. Without wishing to be alarmist a friend's newborn DD didn't have a poo for 11 days. She hadn't been latching on correctly and ended up losing 20% of her body weight. Is the baby gaining weight? Is it worth just asking your friend if she feels the feeding is going well, is her DS latching on properly or is she getting a lot of pain (beyond a bit of discomfort)? Is her DS satisfied or crying constantly because he's still hungry? I would suggest making absolutely certain the baby is feeding properly. If so, then i would imagine everything is fine. If not she should act now and pester the healthcare professionals until she gets help. And she shouldn't take no for an answer.

cocoachannel · 19/04/2011 11:00

I think the upshot is she should ring an expert and hear for herself. If I'd read some of this stuff six weeks ago I'd have been a wreck for no good reason.

Original poster
friendofalurker · 19/04/2011 11:12

they were looked at by paed on friday when the whole 2 towel incident came to light - feeding fine - hospital confirmed she had enough milk to feed whole of south devon (slight exageration obv) . Will update when poo appears. She has spoken to mw this am who said pretty much what cocoachannel said.

OP posts:
mejon · 19/04/2011 13:06

11 week old DD2 didn't poo (bar the initial meconium) for 9 days (I think - MW took my notes on discharge). She was producing wet nappies and putting on weight but the MW wasn't overly concerned - told me that she was obviously absorbing all the goodness from the milk so that there was not waste (don't know if I quite believe that!). MW did come out on extra visits to check her over. When DD2 did finally open her bowels there was no holding her back and we had 3 dirty nappies in a very short time. She now tends to go at least once a day.

Hopefully · 19/04/2011 13:26

I had exactly the same experience as narmada - no poo as a result of tongue tie/latch issues.

However, this was only discovered months and months down the road. With hindsight, I wish that all the MWs/HCPs I spoke to hadn't kept telling me that as long as he was feeding, it was fine.

If she is at all sore, that could be an indication that, for some reason, latch isn't great and baby isn't getting enough. Is baby otherwise content?

Because my DS was big at birth, no one ever particularly helped us, just kept saying we couldn't expect him to gain at normal rate, and lots of crying was to be expected as my milk would take a long time to catch up with what he needed. All complete crap.

narmada · 19/04/2011 13:31

cocochanel I didn't mean to be alarmist, but if it is a feeding issue it is so, so much easier to get it sorted out sooner rather than later. Appearing to feed fine is not necessarily an indicator - I had all manner of people telling me the latch was fine, he was feeding just fine, and he absolutely wasn't. About 6 different people also missed his tongue tie despite me asking them to check for it. DS also slept very well but that was not an indicator either. He was just sleeping to conserve energy. When he got more milk, he slept much less and woke much more frequently.

I do hope everything is well with your friend's baby but to my mind it's really better to just get a little bit of oossibly uneccesary intervention now (as long as they're not overhandling the baby, trying to force the feeding issue, etc) than face problems further down the line.

narmada · 19/04/2011 13:32

possibly Blush

sancerrre · 19/04/2011 13:58

My DS had this, meconium till day 3 then nothing till day 10. We took him to the Dr and it all came gushing out there. He said that his digestive system was just a bit slow getting going. In hindsight I think I probably wasn't producing enough milk for him to start off with (also it was still yellow when I pumped to see how much was coming out.)

NotQuiteCockney · 19/04/2011 16:54

The fact she has lots of milk is great (presumably she breastfed her other two?) but that doesn't prove the baby is getting the milk out.

I'd ask lots of questions here:

  • are her nipples sore?
  • how often is the baby feeding? What are the feeds like? How much of the time is he really going to town?
  • how much wee?
  • is he alert some of the time?
  • are there other health issues?
  • what shape are her nipples at the end of a feed?
Original poster
friendofalurker · 20/04/2011 13:33

poo occured this am at 7.30 - lots of poo.

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