Constipation in newborn

My dietitian gave me the following notes. I will retype them here and then follow on about what helped Dylan who suffered really badly.

1. Is there a family of history

2. A diet which lacks fibre in the form of fruit and veg and wholewheat products can aggrevate constipation.

3. Eating too much junk food.

4 Eating too much red meat.

5. How much water does your child drink. Too little water will cause hard stools.

6. Too much milk is not good for a child. Do not heat the milk and be careful of follow on milk. Rather use normal cows milk after age one.

7. Hot milk and cooked cheese - these are both very difficult to digest and should be used sparingly.

8 Medication iron supplementation is well known to cause constipation as well as too much calcium from dairy.

9 Toilet behaviour, potty training or reluctance to use school toilets or any toilet is often an issue. Use a sticker chart to reward for bowel movements to encourage the child to at least try to use the toilet.

10 Be active

What to do:

1. Remove hot milk from teh diet and cooked cheese.

2. Slowly increase fibre

3. more fruit and veg. Mealies work like a bomb!

4. Fluid fluid fluid - At least a litre a day in the form of water (for toddlers) or diluted juice or rooibos. Caffeine in the form of a small cup of coffee at breakfast with the cereal can help stimulate the gut, only if the child is already drinking the odd cup of coffee. Often a hot cup of anything (tea/water) can stimulate the gut.

5. Watch milk intake

7 Encourage a variety of proteins like chicken and fish. Limit biltong and wors.

8 Use medication as prescribed by the doctor.



Okay so my advice which helped Dylan was:

1 NO hot milk. It made a huge difference.

2 probiotics daily

3 the paed advised us to use 5ml of laxette every day for a month. It is perfectly safe and effective. It draws fluid into the gut just as sugar would only it is more concentrated.

Constipation results in painful stools which makes children scared to pass stools which then results in more constipation.

Momtoc

then i would suggest Movicol for LO. this is advice i got from a friend, her ped prescribed it for her. i am still struggeling with constipation with my LO, she is now 7 months old. i don't want to use the movicol all the time, but till i get a different solution i'll do it. cause those hard stools are the worst. i am just putting it into her morning bottle.

You can buy Movicol over the counter, it's a natural laxative.

put 1.25ml measure in every bottle. and maybe use it less and less as it gets better. the sachets aren't the cheapest, but it's worth the try. my friends ped prescribed 2.5ml p bottle (from 6 weeks), but the 1.25 did the trick for me.

i try not to use it everyday

but the main thing is, is to try a different milk.

formula milk sucks. i don't know why they can't just invent a formula that's exactly like breastmilk.

Skapie, I totally agree with you.

I battled for 3 months with my daughter(cramps, constipation for a week or so, bad reflux etc). Her paed eventually changed her from Nan to Novolac AR & it worked wonders. I kept her on the normal Novolac until she was a year & a half.

My SIL's baby was definitely constipated as she couldn't go for days & was in a lot of pain when she tried pushing it out & when it came out, it was hard & round & it is suppose to be like a paste texture but the Novolac sorted it out in less than 2 days.

HI

Look the first 6 weeks are hectic with a newborn, with regards to cramps and what have you. we sat up at night with our baby plenty nights for 5 or 6 hours, where she would just cry. and pulling up her legs because of cramps

Buscopan worked for my little one. If it's deffinitely constipation you can also try the Glycerine Suppositries, for instant relief

You must also remember, some babies only pooh every 8 to 10 days. so it depends on what is "normal" for your baby before you can diagnose constipation

I would also suggest baby massaging, twice a day. it takes about two weeks, but should help. ride bicycle with the babies legs if it makes any sense. it helps with trapped gas.

and then off course, try switching formulas. i've heard excellent things about novulac

Just an update on my SIL's lo. It looks like the Novolac worked. Her tummy started working properly from saturday morning.

We also took her to Dischem's baby clinic to get her weighed etc & the sister said it is fine that we changed her formula as it is always better than administering medication to fix the problem.

My SIL also told me that her lo started throwing up with the S26 but she is totally fine with the Novolac.

We will see how it goes.

Thanks for all the advice ladies!

Hey momtoc - Riley didn't have diarrhea either - which is why it took us so long to work out what was going on. But from the very first bottle of S26-LF he was 100%. So I have been buying out every single shop that is still stocking it. Riley is now 6 months old and am moving him onto solids quite quickly (I started him on solids at 4 months under advisement of my Paed), but know that I'll still need the S26-LF for a good long while. So don't want to land up getting stuck with not being able to find the formula anywhere. My cupboard looks like a formula shelf at a dischem

Really hope she sorts baby out soon. sending much luck!!

Thanks Lina.

I also heard that about S26 & told her about it.
I can see where you get the Lactose Intolerant but the one thing that is missing is that she doesn't have diarrhea as that is also a cause for lactose intolerance BUT you might be right there.

She is also using the telement drops but it isn't helping as she is very, very constipated & she needs to get that poop out. I will phone her over the weekend again & see how it goes, otherwise she will have to get lo to a dr.

I also know they don't recommend giving honey to a baby under one as it contains botulism spores which can lead to botulism poisoning but I know a lot of parents do give honey at some stage & nothing happened to the baby. So, each parent does what they think is best I just refused to give honey as I didn't wanna take any chances.