Persistent blood in nappies - so far unexplained. Any ideas?

[Flora1985]

Hi everyone,

I'm wondering whether anyone else has any experience of persistent blood in their baby's poo, and what turned out to be the cause in your situation? Our DD is 4 months old and has had small amounts of bright red or pinkish blood in her poo on and off for around six weeks now. Generally without mucus. She's EBF. We have of course been to our GP about it several times, and we've seen a pediatrician at A&E, so I don't think it's an urgent/emergency issue, for now anyway; just wondering whether anyone else has experienced blood in nappies that's gone on for so long and is (so far) unexplained?

Our GP and the A&E paed both thought it unlikely to be a cow's milk protein allergy since we have no history of allergies on either side of the family and DD has no other signs of allergies (eczema, for example); after running some tests and stool samples they concluded it was most likely to be a small tear/graze near the anus that would heal within a week or two following liberal application of nappy cream (which we have been doing). But that was six weeks ago and it's still happening once or twice a week, so I'm fairly sure now it can't be a tear/graze...

We're going to make another appointment to see our GP (if we can even get an appointment, that is; it's madness out there...) and we might try to see a private paed in the new year, but so far they don't seem to know what's causing it and the A&E paed we saw didn't seem overly concerned. Has anyone else experienced anything similar with their DCs? What turned out to be the cause for you?

I should say that other than blood in her poo from time to time DD seems her usual happy and alert self - it doesn't seem to be troubling her at all, from what we and the GP & paed can see.

Thank you in advance for any experiences shared...

OP, thanks so much for updating, nothing worse than reading through a thread and not getting an update! Having a similar issue with blood in my sons stool. He's five months now. Initially they said it was temporary dairy intolerance following a GI infection, so I cut out dairy, but after three weeks have had a nappy with much more blood than before (now 6 weeks after this all began). Off to see the GP again tomorrow, so we'll see what they say. Hoping it turns out to be nothing and just one of those unexplained things. It's just making me more nervous about starting solids. OP, if you read this, did you introduce food slowly and follow a more traditional weaning approach? I did BLW with my first but wondering if that would be best in this case. Tia if you read this! X

Hi @Pamplem, really sorry you're worried about your son - it's so tough when you don't know what's causing it. In our case the blood in DD's stools stopped overnight when we began introducing solids. We started off trying to do BLW but DD wasn't keen on finger food for quite a few months (ironically, now it's all she'll eat 😂) so for the first few months of weaning we mostly offered purees and mashes alongside finger foods. We didn't really start gradually though (not because of the blood in her stool, anyway); as soon as DD got the hang of solids she loved food and ate quite a lot alongside her breastfeeds and as introducing solids seemed to fix the bleeding we just rolled with that and encouraged her to eat as much as possible! Really hope you find answers soon and that your son's bleeding stops asap x

@Flora1985 thanks so much for your reply. I just did the same with weaning (we started two weeks ago) and just went for it with BLW. Your response helped me to be less fearful! I did keep him vegan initially as well.
For anyone else in a similar situation, I also did the yogurt test and he was fine after 72 hours, so I started eating/drinking dairy again. The test is you eating/drinking something high up the dairy ladder and seeing how they react after breastfeeding. Prior to testing, I waited until his poos had gone yellow again and he was only having 1or 2 a day. I waited another few days to check for a build up reaction, and then just gave him dairy directly too. And (touch wood) he's been fine 🥳. I'm so relieved and hope this is the end of it and it was just an unexplained reaction /he took a while to get over an infection.

Thanks for the update. I’ve found this old thread and it’s been really useful!

@Flora1985 Thank you so much for this post and for updating what happened. I’m going through something really similar with my 4 month old baby boy and going to see the GP today. I went into abit of a spiral this morning thinking some of the worst things. But reading this has made me feel hopeful that he’ll be ok. Thank you for sharing x

Sorry to resurrect an old post but I found my way to it when my 10 week old bf baby was pooping blood for a few weeks and doctors couldn’t explain it so maybe others will be reading in the same position.

I had cut out dairy, soya and gluten on doctors orders and it still was not improving.

So I was reading and found on the HSE and Kellymom websites that sometimes blood can be caused by oversupply. I knew I had an oversupply but didn’t for a second link that to the blood. So I decided to pump off the excess foremilk first thing in the morning and my baby’s poops went from green and blood streaked for weeks to yellow and bloodless. In my case, the culprit was over supply. I’m going to see a lactation consultant about how to reduce my supply, as I know pumping will obviously only make the situation worse but it did at least allow me to identify the cause after week and weeks of tearing my hair out and cutting out food because of bloody nappies. We noticed that the blood was appearing around the same time of day - normal am poops that turned sea weed green by midday and then bloody from 4pm until bedtime. I thought it was my breakfast foods (I actually stopped breakfast all together!) but it was simply that those first few foremilk rich feeds of the day would hit her digestive system properly by about midday and then the excess lactose in the gut would ferment and cause the inflammation and blood by about 4pm. So if your lo has the same pattern and is not responding to diet changes, it’s worth thinking about your supply.

@Flora1985 thanks. I'm going through this currently and this is quite reassuring
Hopefully it resolves as my GP has no clue what it is