Institutions 

What is the chair of a 2 month old baby. the main causes of gastrointestinal disorders in babies under one year old. Diarrhea and other problems


Stool is an important indicator of the normal functioning of the intestines. It is not surprising that parents are concerned about how many times a day a newborn should poop. What is considered the norm, and in what cases should you consult a doctor?

What frequency is considered normal?

The first thing to remember is that the concept of the norm, when it comes to babies, is very arbitrary. If the child is breastfed, then he can empty the intestines once a day, and 10, and even once every few days. The main indicator is the well-being of the newborn. If he is in a good mood, the tummy does not hurt, the feces pass easily, then there is hardly anything to worry about.

Most babies poop frequently during the first month of life. This usually happens before or immediately after feeding. Since the baby is regularly applied to the chest, then he has a chair 7-8 times a day. As it grows, the frequency of bowel movements decreases. A two-month-old baby already does this 3-6 times. By the end of the second month, the work of the digestive system is normalized. Often parents note that colic disappears by this age. The work of the intestines is also getting better. The baby now poops 1-2 times a day.

Green and frothy stools can be a sign that the baby is not getting enough high-calorie so-called hindmilk. In this case, do not rush to change breasts during feeding.

This happens with many children, but not all. How many times a bowel movement occurs depends on personal characteristics. It happens that at 3-4 months the baby poops often, up to 10 times a day. You can consult a pediatrician. But if the child is gaining weight well, then most likely this is an individual feature. Other babies are able not to poop for several days, even a week. If there are no signs that the baby is worried about the tummy, then you should not rush to master the enema or candles.

For formula-fed babies, the rules are different. They poop less often. During the neonatal period, that is, in the first 4 weeks of life, they do this 3-5 times. Already at two months they usually defecate 1-2 times a day.

What does the feces of a healthy baby look like?

If the baby poops regularly and the frequency of bowel movements corresponds to the average, this is good. But parents continue to worry and carefully study the consistency of feces. Again, we must remember the principle "the child does not owe anything to anyone." And the contents of diapers may differ in different babies, while remaining within the normal range.

It is considered that everything is in order if the following signs are present.

  • The feces are yellowish in color. The shade can be either light or dark. Brown is allowed, sometimes green. In formula-fed babies, it may be darker.
  • Consistency - slurry, liquid or thick.
  • The chair is ideally without any impurities. But due to the immaturity of the digestive system, lumps of undigested milk are possible. A small amount of mucus without any other signs of pathology is not a reason to sound the alarm.
  • The smell should not be sharp and unpleasant if the baby is breastfed. When fed with mixtures, it is stronger and putrefactive.

How does nutrition affect?

Feces of the baby depends on its nutrition. If he is exclusively breastfed, then it matters what and how much the mother eats. When eating fatty foods, sweets, some vegetables, bloating in a child, increased gas formation, constipation and, conversely, frequent stools are possible. Sometimes an allergy appears, one of the symptoms is mucus in the stool. Therefore, when problems with the tummy begin, mom should definitely review her menu.

In this case, there is no need to rush to transfer the crumbs to the mixture. Often it is also not suitable and causes unpleasant manifestations. Then you have to choose another one.

The chair will change after the introduction of complementary foods. This should not be surprising, because the digestive system begins to work more actively. Probably, at first, undigested lumps and even a little mucus will appear in the feces. New foods are still difficult to learn, so you need to pay attention to the child's behavior. If there is no vomiting, diarrhea, allergies, then complementary foods should be continued. Feces will gradually change in texture and smell.

What to do if a child has constipation?

Due to the immaturity of the digestive tract, parents often experience irregular stool frequency. One of the most common problems in babies is constipation. It occurs due to a lack of milk, malnutrition of the mother or an inappropriate mixture, and certain diseases. It appears like this:

  • stool lingers for a day or longer, before that it was regular;
  • the child worries and cries, strains to no avail, cries at the time of defecation;
  • feces have a dense texture.

If the baby is unable to poop, and the tummy hurts, then he needs help. First of all, you should try to bend his legs and press him to his stomach, gently pressing. You can also gently bring the elbow of the left hand and the knee of the right leg, then vice versa. After that, you need to lightly massage the stomach in a circular motion.

It happens that a large accumulation of gases interferes with bowel emptying. At the same time, the abdomen is swollen, rumbling is heard, the child is worried and crying. In such cases, you should also try to bring the legs. Sometimes it helps if you just arrange the baby on your arm with your stomach down and thus vilify him as much as possible. You can also apply a heated diaper.

If you still can’t cope with the problem, then you should use glycerin suppositories for children, a vent tube or a microclyster. It is impossible to use a pipette to remove gases: it can fall apart and injure the baby. It is not recommended to abuse such drugs, so as not to be addictive. If constipation often recurs, then it is important to find and eliminate the cause that causes them. This is especially true for children older than three months: the digestive system matures by this age.

Diarrhea and other problems

Often there is an opposite problem - diarrhea in infants. The difficulty is that it is not always easy to distinguish indigestion from an individual, because a newborn is able to poop up to 10 times a day. You need to be wary if the baby defecates several times more than usual, and the stool is watery and has an unpleasant odor.

The reasons may be different:

  • intestinal infection;
  • lactose deficiency;
  • malnutrition of the mother during breastfeeding or inappropriate food for the child himself;
  • overfeeding;
  • reaction to drugs;

When other symptoms are present (vomiting, lethargy, fever), then you should definitely consult a doctor. In their absence, it is necessary to observe the baby, if the diarrhea does not go away, then you should also see a specialist. It is important to give the baby to drink often, even to force as much as necessary. Dehydration in young children comes on quickly, and the consequences can be catastrophic.

Although there is no absolute norm for frequency, color and consistency, there are some warning signs. If they were noticed, then it is necessary to consult a pediatrician.

  • Chair in black. This is a symptom of bleeding from the upper gastrointestinal tract. But you don’t need to be scared in advance: perhaps the whole thing is taking iron supplements. Or the baby swallowed some blood from a crack in the mother's nipple.
  • Colorless feces, especially in combination with yellowish skin and sclera: this happens if there are obstacles to the outflow of bile.
  • Blood streaks in feces.
  • Pink mucus is a symptom of intussusception.

In order not to miss health problems in infants, you have to pay attention to his stool. The main thing is to remember that frequency is an individual concept. Therefore, there is no unambiguous answer to the question of how many times a day a child should poop.

Mixed and artificial feeding of newborns is often complicated by various health problems in children. Usually, the intestines suffer from mixtures. And the smaller the child, the more difficult it is for him to adapt to artificial feeding. In this material we will talk about the features of the chair of a child up to a year.

The chair of a newborn with artificial feeding is normal up to seven times a day, just like in a child who eats breast milk, how many times a day a baby should poop is decided only by his body, it is individual. True, such frequent stools are rare among artificial people. Babies usually poop 1-3 times a day. And the frequency of stool in a newborn normally decreases with the introduction of complementary foods into his diet.

Children's feces are very different from adults. While the baby eats only the mixture, the feces do not smell at all or have a slightly sour smell. Its color can vary from yellow to green. Sometimes mothers notice the stool of a newborn baby on artificial feeding with an admixture, namely, with white lumps. Their appearance is a sign that the mixture is not completely absorbed, not completely digested. But this phenomenon is usually temporary. And single white lumps should not scare parents.

What should you pay attention to? First of all, on the well-being of the child. It's easy to see if he's healthy or not. If the baby has the usual, it would seem, yellow mushy stool, but at the same time he screams during bowel movements, it is clear that he is in pain, and during the day there are colic - this is not the norm. Especially if the child is already older than 4 months. The stool in infants on mixed and artificial feeding can be adjusted with a quality mixture. It does not make much difference whether this mixture is based on cow or goat protein, since their proteins are very similar in structure, it is important that it fits the child. It will take a few days to get used to the mixture. After that, parents should see their child happy, healthy, well-fed, without skin allergies, diarrhea and constipation.

Diarrhea or constipation in a formula-fed newborn

This problem may be the result of a one-time change in the brand of the mixture or an unsuccessful choice of it. If the diet has not changed, then it may make sense to transfer the child to another mixture. Just be very careful. At least within 7 days, you need to gradually replace one mixture with another.
At the same time, the mixture to which the replacement is made should not only be adapted for children of the appropriate age, but it is also desirable to contain bifidus or lactobacilli. Sour-milk mixtures have proven themselves well in the fight against constipation.

When should you help your child? Usually the baby can not poop for up to 2-3 days without any health risk. But if the mother notices that the child is seething in the tummy, he is pushing, crying, you need to help. This is easiest to do with a glycerin candle - for children ("Glycelax") or half from an adult. Another good option is Microlax microclysters. They also partially consist of glycerin. Some mothers insert a cotton swab into the anus of the child and slightly press on the wall of the rectum, thereby causing the baby to push. But it is better not to do this in order to avoid injury.

It is important to prevent chronic constipation. In this condition, the child has no stool for several days due to the fact that his rectum has ceased to respond to the pressure on its walls of a small portion of feces. Just stretched out. Then you need treatment. It is usually sufficient to take lactulose syrup (Duphalac or Normaze) for several weeks. It is absolutely safe, and with the right dosage (selected individually), it helps the baby to empty the intestines every day, and at about the same time.

The introduction of complementary foods during artificial feeding can provoke hard stools or, conversely, is one of the means of treating constipation. Usually complementary foods are advised to be introduced at the age of 6 months. And start it in case of a tendency to constipation with vegetables or dairy products. And with a tendency to thin stools - from dairy-free cereals. By the way, loose stools in a formula-fed baby are not common, since mixtures contain less water than breast milk.

In general, stool thinning with an increase in its frequency up to 8 times a day or more may indicate an intestinal infection. But in this case, usually not only watery stools are observed in a newborn-artificial, but also abdominal pain, fever, and vomiting. With such symptoms, or even its partial presence, it is urgent to contact a pediatrician or an ambulance, since infants become dehydrated very quickly. And be sure to give your child more water.

It’s just that in newborns on artificial feeding, periodically appearing green stools are usually not a sign of some kind of illness. This can be with lactase deficiency. And in this case, if the pediatrician notices low weight gain, and the mother complains about the child’s poor appetite and pain in the intestines, it is possible to switch to low-lactose and lactose-free mixtures or use special lactase supplements before feeding. This is an enzyme that helps your baby's body digest lactose, milk sugar.

Sometimes parents, carefully monitoring the color of the stool in a newborn on IV, was normal and what it became with lactase deficiency, they note blood in the feces. This happens due to irritation of the intestinal walls by lactose. Usually goes away on its own. But nevertheless requires the consultation of a pediatrician.

In addition to lactase deficiency, artificial children may be allergic to cow or goat milk protein. It is expressed by the appearance of bloody streaks in the child's feces, a rash on the skin, and abdominal pain. And often its first sign is redness near the anus of the child. In this case, you need to switch not to a low-lactose mixture, but with hydrolyzed cow protein. Feed her child for several months, waiting for the maturation of his intestines, the enzymatic system that will allow normal digestion of cow protein.

Unlike the stool of breastfed newborns, the stool of a baby on artificial feeding is more often disturbed. But it is up to parents to help their child. And if possible, transfer, at least partially, to breastfeeding.

Ekaterina Morozova


Reading time: 9 minutes

A A

While the newborn baby is still too small, and is not able to say how he feels, what hurts him, and in general - what he wants, some information about the condition of the child - in particular, about his digestive system - parents can get by carefully examining the feces newborn in a diaper.

How much should a baby poop a day?

  • In the first days of life, during the first month baby pooping approx. as many times as he eats : about 7-10 times, i.e. after every feeding. The amount of bowel movements also depends on what the baby eats. If he is breastfed, then he will poop more often than an artificial baby. The norm of feces in infants is 15g. per day for 1-3 bowel movements, increasing to 40-50 gr. by half a year.
    • The color of feces in breastfeeding newborns is yellowish-green in the form of gruel.
    • The feces of a child-artist are thicker and have a light yellow, brown or dark brown hue.
  • On the second month of life stools of a breastfed baby 3-6 times a day, for an artificial person - 1-3 times , but on a larger scale.
  • Until the third month, while intestinal peristalsis is being established, the child's stool is irregular. Some babies poop every day, others every other day or two.
    Do not worry if the baby has not pooped for two days and does not show concern. Usually, after the introduction of solid food into the baby's diet, the stool is getting better. Do not take enemas or laxatives. Give your child a tummy massage or give a drop of prunes.
  • By half a year it is normal for a baby if it is emptied once a day. If there are no bowel movements for 1-2-3 days, but the baby feels good and gains weight normally, then there are no reasons for special concern yet. But the absence of feces can "say" that the child is malnourished, he does not have enough food.
  • By 7-8 months when complementary foods have already been introduced, what kind of feces the baby has - depends on the foods that he ate. Changes in the smell and density of feces. The smell changes from sour milk to more pungent, and the consistency becomes denser

What should be the feces of a newborn on natural and artificial feeding in the norm - the color and smell of the feces of the baby is normal

When the baby eats exclusively breast milk (from 1 to 6 months), a baby's stool is usually liquid , which causes panic among parents who think that their baby is suffering from diarrhea. But what should be the baby's stool if he eats only liquid food? Naturally liquid.

When complementary foods are introduced, the density of feces will also change. : It will become thicker. And after the child eats the same foods as adults, his feces will become appropriate.

Normal feces in a breastfed baby are:


For an artificial baby, feces are considered normal:


Changes in the feces of a newborn baby, which should be the reason for going to the doctor!

You should contact your pediatrician if:


You should immediately consult a doctor if changes in feces are noticed in the diaper of a newborn:

  • Greenish color and changed smell of the baby's feces.
  • Too hard, dry feces in a newborn.
  • Large amount of mucus in the child's stool.
  • Red streaks in stool.

Site site warns: self-medication can harm the health of your baby! The diagnosis should be made only by a doctor after the examination. Therefore, if you find alarming symptoms, be sure to consult a specialist!

Until the moment of birth, the blood circulation in children is arranged differently, and the intestines are generally sterile. After the birth, the child's body begins to work like an adult, which at this stage is difficult and unusual for him.

The baby cannot say or clearly express his discomfort and cries a lot in the first three months. The color of the feces in a newborn is an objective factor by which parents can judge the state of health of the baby.

Bowel function in the first months of life

The children's organ performs standard functions - it participates in the digestion of food, promotes the absorption of nutrients into the blood and removes unnecessary products. You can evaluate the quality of his work by the parameters of feces - consistency, color, smell, presence of inclusions. In addition, the functioning of some other organs and systems is judged by changes in secretions.

Metabolic products begin to accumulate even in the womb, and exit after childbirth, so the first feces of the baby looks non-standard. Intestinal sterility and a weak enzymatic function lead to the fact that after meconium, the stools do not have a strong odor, and their color is expressed in a grayish tint.

As beneficial bacteria colonize and digestion improves, the feces acquire a pronounced unpleasant odor and turn yellow-brown. The relationship between the work of the gastrointestinal tract and the nature of the discharge is obvious and allows you to assess the health, as well as the needs of the newborn.

The frequency of bowel movements in infants occurs up to 12 times, regardless of the type of feeding. This allows parents to notice the problem in time if it occurs. At the same time, young mothers should adhere to the “golden mean”, that is, understand in which cases it is worth worrying about, and when there is no danger.

And for this, basic concepts of how the feces of a newborn look normal are needed. Doctors believe that this concept is relative and it is impossible to compare all babies according to the same parameters. The rate or number of bowel movements and their appearance differ depending on the type of feeding of the child.

Are you feeding your baby properly? In this video, Dr. Komarovsky will talk about the best feeding regimen for a child:

What does the color say

Normal chair:

  • Black-green. This is what meconium looks like, which appears in the first day of a baby's life.
  • Yellow-green, marsh. After the previous form, this color indicates the beginning of the enzymatic system and the digestion of mother's milk. The sour smell of bowel movements is also considered a variant of the norm. The main thing at this time is that the baby gains weight.
  • Yellow. Such a stool is formed after the previous transitional period and is the result of the proper functioning of the gastrointestinal tract and liver.

In older children who eat complementary foods, changes in the color of the stool occur depending on the food eaten. Orange causes carrots, burgundy - beets, and dark - prunes.

Pathological stool - green!

Often indicates malnutrition of the child, which occurs due to lack of milk, the physiological characteristics of the nipples, or the mother's plant-based diet.

The cause can also be an inflammatory process in the intestinal mucosa, which prevents the organ from functioning normally and impairs the digestion of food. This happens with dysbacteriosis or as a result of pathologies during pregnancy.

If the green color is due to the presence of bilirubin, then this is considered normal until 9 months of age, so it is important to contact a pediatrician who will determine the cause of the changes.

A pronounced green color in an artificial child is caused by acquaintance with a new mixture.

  • Small areas with a red tint are due to the appearance of blood particles, which is considered a dangerous condition. The cause is an infection, constipation, or an allergy to milk protein.
  • Bright yellow or orange. If the color of the feces is not caused by complementary foods or the mother's diet, then it indicates problems with the liver.

As a rule, pathological conditions of fecal masses are accompanied by the appearance of such symptoms:

  • Elevated temperature.
  • Abdominal pain.
  • Vomit.
  • Diarrhea.

If only the shade of stool is alarming, there is little cause for concern.

Video about breastfeeding a baby:

Color of feces while breastfeeding

The stool of infants who feed on mother's milk differs in the following parameters:

  1. It may be absent on some day due to the good digestibility of mother's milk.
  2. The stool has a light sandy tint, which mothers often confuse with diarrhea.
  3. The stools are shapeless, liquid and heterogeneous.
  4. The color of the feces depends on the mother's diet and changes after each feeding.

Additional inclusions

Particles in the stool tell the doctor what is difficult for the digestive system to cope with and what kind of failures there are in its work.

Often in the feces there are white grains, which are undigested lumps of cottage cheese. Such inclusions are formed when the child overeats or due to enzymatic deficiency. The first reason is easy to eliminate, but in the second case, an examination of a sick child and additional tests will be required.

If there are too watery areas with foam in the feces, such changes are caused by lactase deficiency. Several pathological processes that occur in the intestine and do not cause difficulties in medical diagnosis lead to a characteristic clinical picture. Often, such a deviation is temporary and disappears on its own closer to one year of age.

Sometimes undigested food is found on the diaper. More often, this condition is caused by new complementary foods and normalizes after a few days. If this does not happen, the introduction of unusual food is postponed, perhaps the baby's body is not yet ready for it.

Black dots in stool are usually bloody patches. They are absent in the stool of a healthy child and a similar symptom requires an urgent consultation of a pediatrician. If at the same time the discharge has a bright green color, a dangerous intestinal infection can be assumed.

Mucus, even in large quantities, doctors consider the norm. However, there should be no other warning signs.

Consistency

The stool with artificial feeding is denser than with natural feeding. However, the comparison should not be made with generally accepted norms, but with other bowel movements of your child. If the feces were shapeless, and then, without changing the diet, began to come out in dense pieces, the mother should be wary. The cause may be her own diet, an intestinal infection, lack of fluids, or other factors.

Hard feces in the form of a pebble cause discomfort to the child and can injure the intestinal mucosa.

At the period of formation of the functions of the gastrointestinal tract, the nature of the feces changes. Why this happens, as well as how the normal stool of a newborn looks and smells, the pediatrician should tell the parents. Dangerous situations, as a rule, have mixed symptoms, and also cause constant anxiety of the child. The key to the rapid maturation of enzymatic systems and the proper functioning of the intestines is mother's milk.

In the first months of life after birth, the child should empty the intestines at least once every 36 hours. And in the first month, the child walks on the "big" as many times as he ate. The older the baby gets, the less often he goes to the toilet. In the first 6 months, the number of emptyings is about 5 times a day. Then, as the child grows older, the number of stools is reduced to 3-4, and after a year the child walks on the "big" 2-3 times a day. But the main thing to remember is that at least once every 2 days - this is already considered a deviation from the norm.

The baby's stool has the consistency of a slurry - not very liquid, but not solid either. There may be white or yellow curdled lumps - these are lumps of milk, so there is no need to panic. By 6 months, the stool becomes more firm, but, nevertheless, it should not be very hard and resemble “sheep” stool (small balls) in shape. After a year, a child's stool can be both uniform and in the form of gruel - both of which are the norm.

The color of the stool in an infant should normally be from light yellow to light brown. Therefore, if you see that the child has a light stool, do not panic - this is the norm. There is a difference in color depending on what the baby eats. If he is breastfeeding, then the stool will be yellowish with a sour-milk smell. If the baby is artificially fed, then the stool will be thicker and lighter in color, sometimes even with a grayish tint. But the child may have a green stool, if applied.

When the first complementary foods appear in the child's diet, the color of the stool begins to darken, with the introduction of meat, it acquires a characteristic fecal odor. By the end of the first year, the color of the baby's feces is already becoming brown with shades of those foods that the baby ate the day before. A greenish tint can be if the child ate, for example, broccoli, and orange - carrots or pumpkin.

Deviations from the norm

Deviations from the norm are considered changes in both the color of feces and its consistency. The most common deviations are:

  • Loose stools in a child. It is a deviation from the norm at any age. In infants, the causes of watery stools can be dysbacteriosis, intestinal infection, lactase deficiency, etc. In any case, this problem should immediately lead you to the pediatrician's office.
  • The child has green stools (stools with mucus). This phenomenon is quite common in infants and most often is the norm. But if this phenomenon occurs more often than once in 6-7 emptyings, then we are talking about pathology. Here, too, dysbacteriosis, an intestinal infection, for example, staphylococcal enterocolitis, can also be causes - it just has a characteristic symptom of a green color.
  • Bloody traces in the stool. This, of course, immediately speaks of pathology. There can be a lot of reasons here - from viruses and dysbacteriosis to constipation. A doctor must be contacted immediately.

Constipation in the chest

Constipation in infants can occur for a variety of reasons. Constipation is when a child is unable to empty their bowels on their own for 36 hours or more. Also, dense shaped feces in the first months of life are considered constipation, even if emptying occurs frequently.

Causes of constipation in a child up to a year:

  • Dysbacteriosis;
  • Violation of the biliary tract;
  • Violation of the pancreas;
  • Improper nutrition;
  • Weak muscle tone;
  • Insufficient fluid intake;
  • Stress, fear.

Treatment depends on the causes of constipation. These can be drugs that normalize the microflora or intestinal motility, and drugs for the production of bile. But before visiting a doctor, parents can help their child cope with this task. If you find that the child has not walked on the “big” for more than 36 hours, or not much time has passed yet, but you notice that the child has not gone to the toilet at the usual time, while he is pushing, grunting and crying, it is recommended to start stimulating emptying . You must follow these steps in sequence:

Frequent stools in a child

Diarrhea is not only common. Diarrhea or frequent stools in a child is any stool that occurs more often than normal (more than 5 times) or has a too thin, watery consistency. Most often, both the first and second occur at the same time. An intestinal infection can be quickly determined here - vomiting and fever are added to a private stool. The first thing parents should do before the arrival of the doctor is to prevent dehydration, give the child plenty of water, but in small portions every 15-20 minutes. In addition to ordinary water, it is also desirable to give saline solutions. Dehydration can be recognized by external signs - dry lips and mucous membranes, lethargy, lack of saliva, convulsions, lethargy. In this situation, you can no longer do without an ambulance.