Please help - one year old screaming when pooing

[snowchick1977]

hi

Dd is 13 months old and past few weeks she has started screaming, sweating and going bright red when pooing.

The poos that come out are not that hard but there is a lot of it and (sorry if too much info) if I lie her on her back and bend her legs to help it looks like her bum is turning inside out. She goes rigid when pooing and its as if when the feeling comes she just tenses up.

I havent changed anything in her diet?

Any advice or help?

Thanks so much

You could try giving her lactulose to help soften the poo and ease it out. Just put 2.5ml in her milk drink twice a day for a few days and see if it helps. You don't want her getting to the point of refusing to go because it hurts as then she may end up needing surgical help!

I spoke to the nurse who prescribed this lactulose. To be honest she had one runny poo and now its back to the screaming, so it hasnt made any difference.

She goes tense and rigid when trying to poo, which then results in her holding her poo back (i think she is scared of the feeling now) which then results in the poo building up and then the mammoth stuggle to get it out.

The poo isnt totally hard when it comes, its like play doh, but it is the size and volume of it which makes her cry out in pain.

She now hasnt been for 36 hours and the last time she did go there was a tiny spot of blood.

Any advice?

Did you keep giving the lactulose every day? Or have you stopped?

With lactulose you have to dose every day over a longer period of time as it is quite gentle compared to some other constipation meds.

You should take her back to GP.

Also could she be sensitive to a particular food, is it worth trying elimination of dairy or gluten/wheat temporarily to see if it helps?

Ive given her the lactulose for the past 5 days twice a day as described.

I havent changed anything in her diet at all.

Im going to have to speak to the nurse again.

Argh!

Keep going with the lactulose, it's early days. Give her a bit of prune juice and plenty of water.

if passing normal stools but in pain is worth considering milk intolerence.

some babies have upper intolerence, where the valve at the top of the stomach get irritated by the protien in the milk, this causes reflux/vomiting and stools which are not normal.

however , the protein in the milk can sometimes irritate the lining of the anus, and cause pain with passing normal stools. this pain is pretty bad as there are more nerve endings in the bowel than in the brain.

if you consider removing milk, talk to the gp and ask to be reffered to a pead consultant in hospital .

do you have any allergies in family, any history of eczema, asthma , enviro allergies, and food allergies ?

i would wonder if she has a tiny anual fissure? my ds3 was like this and it turned out that is what he had.

i gave him pureed prunes with his breakfast everyday to make sure his poo was nice and soft and that helped.

keep going with the lactulose and prunes and plenty of liquids, also sometimes putting a bit of vaseline on their bum hole helps!

This happened with my DD. You've described it almost to a tee. Lactolose and lots of extra water to drink really helped. My DD adores cucumber so I sliced up some, put it into the water and chilled it in the fridge. It really flavours the water well. She happily drank more of that than she would have ordinary water.

I also made lots of meals with prunes. Chicken & prunes go well together.
Avoid bananas as they can make constipation worse.

I hope it gets better for her soon.