Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Breastfed babies and their poop

Megan did not poop over the weekend and up to yesterday, she still did not poop. Nanny was getting a little worried and said that she is perhaps heaty.

However, I assured her that Megan is perfectly fine. In fact, the doctor said that it is normal even if the baby did not poop for up to 14 days. This, provided the baby is exclusively breastfed. If the baby has mixed feedings, then this is not healthy.

As I look up the Net, the following was revealed as to the reasons for this peculiarity.

Breast milk is a miracle milk. It contains all the nutrition that the baby needs in the exact combination that is needed. What is even more amazing is that the milk content changes as the baby grows.

As the baby's intestines mature, she is able to digest the breast milk more completely, therefore, the amount of waste the baby produces becomes lesser. And this in turn would cause the baby to go for days without pooping. Apparently this starts to happen when she is about 6 weeks till 6 months, when she is exclusively breastfed.

However, I only noticed this with Megan in the recent weeks. Thank goodness I have this knowledge, else I would have been very worried too.

And you know what? She pooped this morning, after hubby left for work - guess who had to clean her then?? Love it!

1 comment:

Kiasu Mom said...

With Hayley, I didn't have the constipation problem when I was breast feeding her but instead she poop so many times a day that I have to surrender using cloth diaper to disposable diaper.