Green Poo!

[Carrotcake89]

Hi,

My DS is almost 10 weeks old and since about 2 weeks old has pretty much exclusively had green poo (I’ve attached some photos - apologies as gross I know!). He is EBF and has been since day one aside from two formula feeds in the hospital as he struggled to latch after birth. In terms of other symptoms he is very windy and often wakes up in pain farting and will writhe around and cry during the day when passing wind or having a bowel movement. For the past 5 weeks he has got fussy on the breast, not all the time but after about 5-10 mins he does wiggle around, grunt, hit my chest etc and go off and on the boob. I sometimes think his eyes look a bit red and puffy, but otherwise no rash. He does have slight dry skin on face and bad cradle cap. I would describe him as a sometimes happy baby, but very fussy when gassy which is often throughout the day. He will only sleep when swaddled in crib and for no more than a few hours at a time and often wakes up early in the morning crying and grunting due to the wind / tummy ache symptoms.

I have discussed this my GP and HV and they have all said it’s normal, green poo means nothing as he is gaining weight well and babies all have issues with tummy aches due to under developed guts and he will grow out of it. I saw a lactation consultant as thought maybe it was his latch / my supply but she wasn’t concerned. I do make sure I feed him fully on a side before switching sides (30 mins) in case it was foremilk / hindmilk inbalance, but still we have the same symptoms consistently. I feel awful seeing him in pain and the green pops just don’t sit right with me. Was hoping someone else might have some ideas / experienced something similar so could offer advice.

thanks in advance!

I too would be concerned about consistently green poo.

Did the Lactation Consultant rule out Tongue Tie? For us I think it was the TT causing the green poop. The second one arrived without TT and only ever had a green poo if she was poorly.

If they've got dry skin, it could also be something you eat, maybe non-ige CMPA.

I don't envy you trying to sort it out though @Carrotcake89. Both TT and CMPA can have very similar symptoms.

I'd maybe start with reading the Milk Matters article above and if the symptoms fit, getting LO checked again for TT through a Tongue Tie Practitioner.

My EBF DS had this green poo until he was weaned onto solids. No one listened, said it was normal, but it was multiple explosive type green poos a day. I'm convinced it was linked to his first rotavirus vaccine and should have pushed to have his stools tested. However, yours have started before the first vaccines, so I'd look into CMPA and possibly soy allergy. You'd have to cut all dairy and soy from your diet and wait a few weeks to see if there is any difference, and it doesn't mean the allergies are long term for your LO. I cut dairy from my diet and the poos turned back to yellow for a few weeks, then back to green despite no dairy.
Good luck, it's hard with windy sore babies as you are trying to do your best EBF!

Thank you both for taking the time to reply. @PritiPatelsMaker i can’t see the link to the article you are referring to. The lactation consultant said he had the slightest of tongue ties, but it wasn’t something she wanted to cut as it wasn’t impacting his latch. I’m going to get back in touch with her and see if I can get her back again to reassess:

@Diamond263 yes my concern is that it is dairy / soy, however I’ve read in EBF babies only 0.5% have a CMPA so it seems unlikely if that stat is true. I’m willing to give it go (although dairy is a huge staple of my diet currently) though to see if it makes a difference. This weekend I am giving colief a go to see if it’s an issue with digesting lactose, but it’s an absolute pain in the arse to administer, especially at night! Otherwise, I wondered if it was due to having antibiotics during labour and whether that’s wiped the good bacteria in his gut so was thinking of trying probiotics. I can only do one thing at a time so might prioritise the dairy / soy elimination, although will be torture over Xmas 😭

As far as I was told, green poo is a sign that DC is not getting to the hindmilk when feeding. The foremilk is watery and designed to quench thirst, whereas the hindmilk is where the fat and substance is. If they baby isn't getting hindmilk the poo is frothy and green.

When this happened to us it was recommended that I feed on one breast across a long window of time before switching to the other side. I think it was 3 or 4 hours. So every feed from 8-11am was on the right, then 11-2pm on the left. Etc.

reiterating what @Throughabushbackwards said. DS2 was EBF and had the constant green nappies. I had a LLL consultant who told me he wasn’t getting rich hind milk.

My daughter has an allergy. So for us. That's what caused the green poo just like you pictured. She was allergic to milk and eggs at that point, later grew out of them. Still can't have nuts.

Could be something totally different for your DC however...

It's might have been helpful of me to add that at that point I was breastfeeding and when I cut out the culprit foods poo wasn't green. When she weaned we started with the...DC eats egg, face swells up scenario.

She sometimes had a bit of blood in the green poo too. Took me ages to get her referred to an allergy specialist too as they said it was my inadequate breast feeding technique. Just my experience.

My son was like this though his poo was less green after a few weeks. I had to give him top up bottles after 10 week's. So did give him a little cooled boiled water in a beaker from then as advised by health visitor. But stopped BF at 7 months because he was getting teeth and he was biteing.

But when I stopped BF and BF while weaning. The look of pain on his face when passing a stool stopped. I can only assume it was something I was eating that didn't agree with him. Though he is fine with dairy so know it wasn't that. I never did find out the cause of his discomfort. But will never forget the look of discomfort on his little face.

My DD's poos were exactly like this. It was a cows milk protein intolerance.

Our timeline was from birth to 6 weeks green poo but no other significant concerns. She was exclusively breast fed.

At 6 weeks I gave her a small amount of formula as she was having a growth spurt and I was exhausted. An hour later we were in A&E as she had, had a reaction to the formula and she was absolutely covered in hives. Antihistamines at the hospital returned her skin to normal colour.

She continued with green poos plus also now quite bad eczema.

We were referred to a paediatric consultant who immediately diagnosed CMPI. I was still breastfeeding so cut out all diary from my diet.

Going dairy free improved the poo and eczema situation significantly.

She outgrew the intolerance at around age 6 or 7 years old.

I'd say CMPI is quite likely. I'd ask your GP to investigate this further for you.

Sorry the Milk Matters article on TT is here.

Personally id get that divided before you do anything else. TT can affect many things as well as latch including having difficulty getting to the hind milk, oral development, weaning and sleep.

My little one had the same issue with green poo and awful painful wind starting early weeks (he also had a nasty nappy rash, watery stools at times and a face rash).

After quite a bit of insisting with HV (I kept asking for advice because of all the different issues and baby was just not sleeping more than 10 minutes because of his painful wind) we were put into contact with a dietitian to talk about cow's milk protein intolerance. There isn't a way to test for it, so elimination diet is the first thing to try.
You might need bring it up and insist with your health visitor or GP to make a referral if baby is struggling. It can be absolutely normal to some degree for them to have gas pains (and breastfed baby's poo can come in different colours) and their gut is still immature at that age, but I had a feeling that it wasn't just that and I was eager to speak with a specialist.

I was advised by the dietitian to trial an elimination diet excluding all dairy and soya and his symptoms improved which to them confirms the intolerance. if it's that they'll also advise you on what supplements to take to ensure you are getting enough calcium.

I've now been dairy/soy free for 5 months now and I've been sent a guide to do a reintroduction of the allergen in baby's diet to see if there's a reaction (most babies do outgrow it).
Hope this makes sense and I hope you figure out what is bothering baby, it's so difficult when they have tummy issues!