Occasional but persistent blood in nappies…worried and anxious

[lavenderlilaclily]

Postes in childrens health but posting here too for more traction…

my 4 month old EBF son has had occasional tiny bits of blood in his nappies since about 7 weeks old. It’s not much blood (sometimes wouldn’t notice if I wasn’t checking carefully), it’s not every nappy, and it’s not every day. Often his nappies can be mucusy too. Sometimes they’re normal breastfed poo colour, sometimes they’re green.

Ive been to the GP about this quite a few times now, and they’re pretty chilled out and dismissive which has left me feeling unsupported. I’ve been referred to paediatrics but the appointment isn’t until end of August.

The diagnosis made was CMPA, so I cut out dairy (this was over 2 months ago now). As that didn’t make much of a difference I then cut out soy, then eggs, then wheat. We’re still having the occasional blood in nappy and I can’t find a correlation from keeping a food diary. I’m also not keen to cut out more foods at random to the detriment of my own health.

I’ve had one GP tell me to keep allergens out and to persevere, and another one telling me to reintroduce as it hasn’t made a difference so it’s likely not that and it’s not good for me. They haven’t tested his stools as they said they “don’t do that” (which seems odd??)

Throughout the whole thing, little one is happy. He hasn’t got eczema, or painful reflux (he does spit up a fair amount but he’s a happy spitter), he doesn’t seem to be in pain, he eats happily, he’s gaining weight, meeting milestones. People comment on how placid and happy he is. His sleep isn’t great but lots of babies don’t sleep.

i don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to get a health professional to see me and help me. I don’t know whether this is an allergy or not, and if so, what I should be doing. I don’t know if I should reintroduce foods into my diet or not (I would love
to as I am struggling and it’s impacting my mental health massively). I don’t know if there is something else that could cause this, and if so whether it will go away or whether it needs treatment. I don’t know if I’m hurting my baby and it makes me sad.

looking for advice/similar experiences/hope!

I have a similar problem. The blood stopped with dairy for me, but mucous and other symptoms are sporadic. I'm considering the Total Elimination Diet. I suspect it is allergy related. I got a blood test and the little one is IGE to cow's milk, so I suspect she might have other allergies.

Blood in stools in under 1’s is almost always CMPA, other concerns would be redcurrant jelly looking stools but doesn’t sound like that’s the case. There’s also no frequent watery or bloody diarrhoea.

You do have a health professional going to see you in August, so that bit is sorted. Baby is happy and thriving, and only having very occasional streaks of blood that you have to look very hard for. He’s not in any pain or unsettled.

What I would do is call your surgery and ask for a GP call back, explain the little summary above and seek final clarification on whether you should reintroduce potential allergens into your diet, explain the impact it’s having on you, but that you’re happy to continue if it’s best for baby, you just need to know how best to manage until august. If his symptoms return/worsen when you restart those foods, then you can speak to the GP and possibly get seen sooner by paeds, if they stay largely as they are now, then you’ll be able to tell the paediatrician that it made no difference.

Any new or worsening symptoms you should speak to your GP or 111, of course.

There’s not much benefit to testing his stools, just to explain the GP rationale. They don’t need to test for blood as they already know it’s there, it’s visible to the naked eye, blood stool samples are to look for microscopic blood or old/changed blood that might not look like blood.

The only other thing they’d test stools for is infection, I.E. bacteria or a virus, but there’s nothing in the history you’ve provided what would raised concerns about an infective cause. If it was infective it would be getting progressively worse without treatment and the baby might be showing signs of illness such as fever, frequent loose stools, pain, etc. Or his body would clear the infection and it would naturally self limit, and there’d be no continuation of the symptoms, they’d have stopped.

Sorry to message so late into the threads life but we have the exact issue as OP and was wondering what the outcome was and if the situation improved?

Any help will be greatly appreciated