How can you tell if a BF baby has Diarrhoea?

[BigBadMousey]

DS is 14wo and 100% BF and has been rather unwell recently.

To me his dirty nappies are the same consistancy and smell as they have always been. The only difference is that they are more frequent at the moment. IMO that can happen with BF babies - sometimes you get nothing for days then they go through phases of a dirty nappy at every change - am I right?

While he was in hospital a health assistant examined one of his nappies and told me he had diarrhoea but it was as usual for him.

What do I need to look out for for diarrhoea in a BF baby (I know it is rare). I'm assuming a different (bad) smell and a very green nappy are the signs but am I right?

TIA.

I'm no expert but ime you are right wrt frequency and sometimes having a dirty nappy every change when bf

Maybe the health assistant was not used to seeing the runnier consistency of bf baby poo relative to ff? (If she maybe doesn't see many bf babies)

When dd was bf she had diarrhoea a couple of times. It was explosive, a weird mixture of colours and also very watery. There was no mistaking it.

HTH

it smells foul too.

Yes indeed.

Yes, I would agree with Foxy - the smell was what did it for us, and the fact that it was not watery as such, but actual water!!!

Thanks very much for your replies. Definitely no odd smell here so I guess that rules it out then (WooHoo!) .

I think that diahrroea is defined as more frequent stools and/or looser stools.

As far as consistency is concerned I think with a bf baby it would be if he had more stools than bf's.

As far as consistency goes they can get v v v watery. You would know if this was the case.

The same thing happened to me - a health visitor's assistant told me my DD had diarrhoea when she was very small, because she had so many dirty nappies.

But I didn't believe her because she had been like that since birth and was perfectly healthy