Green mucus nappies?! TW: nappy picture

[Goscat]

Hello,

Has anyone experienced nappies like the below and found the route cause? GP clueless and referral to paeds in our area is a year for non emergencies 🙄

Context: 3mo exclusively breastfed. Nappies have been getting progressively more frequent, green and mucusy for over a month. I cut out dairy for 2 weeks as recommended by HV but didn't notice a difference except maybe she was less fussy.

She's also a pretty unsettled baby.

Any ideas?!

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Picture

Does baby have a cold or been otherwise unwell? Is she putting on weight? It does indicate an intolerance - CMPA is pretty common. I would suggest 2 weeks is not long enough to remove dairy from your system. More like a month and then it might take a while for dairy to clear from baby’s system too.

Might be a different intolerance of course but I would try the dairy free thing again.

What about specialist CMPA formula - is it worth investigating that whilst maintaining your supply?

Can't see any pictures but my LO would go back to having green mucusy nappies occasionally and the GP would put it down to gastroenteritis or similar. It went on for 2/3 weeks at one point, then back to normal.

If baby is fussy are you swapping breasts frequently? The first milk out at each feed is high in lactose so baby ends up getting a lot of this and less of the fatty hind milk. You could try feeding from the same breast twice.

Two of my children had a milk protein intolerance and had these kind of nappies, they had to go on a prescription only milk.

Colief drops used to be recommended (not sure if they are now).

if you’re really worried you go could go to A&E. I know this is not what A&E is for but you’d get to see a paediatrician.

I’ll put my hard hat on for the flaming !

Two weeks was probably not long enough to see a full difference. If you saw a decrease in fussiness I would see that as a sign that its a good idea to keep going for 4-6 weeks. It can take that long for the gut to heal and see a bigger improvement in symptoms. We saw a few signs of improvement within the first week of me removing food from my diet but it took longer to get more significant changes.
Did you use soya dairy replacements during this 2 weeks? Half of babies are allergic to both. I would be inclined to do another diary free trial and also remove soya and start a food diary at the same time to see if you can notice any other trends.

I remember those! My DD was ebf and had them a lot. I cut dairy entirely for 9 weeks in total, and upon reintroduction she was far better. We now suspect that either she struggled with my v. forceful letdown, and/or a virus of some sort had upset her (she caught covid very early on), after which point her gut just couldn't cope. The exclusion diet allowed her to heal and then she was okay. Of course we also suspected CMPA at the time because she was so fussy, but she was gaining weight fine and didn't have any other symptoms, like eczema for example. Babies with CMPA don't always have the full range of symptoms though so it's hard to know.

Cut dairy for a minimum of 6 weeks (total elimination, check ingredients for traces etc), take her to a cranial osteopath (this helped DD with digestion), and wait to eliminate any other allergens. Good luck!

Thank you all, this is so helpful!

A few thoughts following your suggestions...

I do have a forceful letdown, I usually hand express a bit before putting her on, but is was my next theory.

She had a cold a few weeks ago and also reacted quite badly to the rotovirus vaccine so could be a temporary thing (my son developed a post viral temporary lactose intolerance around the age of one so it does happen)!

And yes, no other symptoms at all bar the nappies and fussiness. She is trending a little downward in weight, but the HV said it's very normal especially as she was a very big baby. She is gaining well though.

I think I am going to trial DF again, but for longer and not even consume "may contain traces" foodstuffs. I don't want to switch to alergen formula and pump because I'm forgetful and dithery and would surely forget to clean bottles and things or bring enough...how the hell do you even make a bottle of formula? 🤣

Sigh... I'll finish off my beloved cheddar tonight and start in the morning

My DS poos looked like this for quite a while after the rotavirus vaccine , I remember the colour looking like that! Also exclusively breastfed. However he never seemed to be uncomfortable, just usual level of baby crying so I never cut out any food.

Just coming back to say I can see the nappy photo now, and it looks exactly the same as my LOs did on/off due to viruses etc.

However it's totally understandable if you want to try an exclusion diet to cover all bases.

I know that brown and yellow make green, it could be infection, but its a guess.

Kelly Mom is always my go-to and has a page on this: kellymom.com/mother2mother/m2m-green-stools/