Problems with Infant Pooping

     Few things cause more concern for parents than their infant’s stooling habits. I’ve written one article on older children and constipation. This article is about poop in the first year of life.

     Normal infant stooling is from 6 times a day to once every 6 days. It is everything from pure water to rock hard and it can be any color from bright yellow to dark black with all shades of green in between. If your infant is otherwise eating, smiling (except when straining at stool) and acting normally, the poop is probably normal, too.

     Infants’ stool varies from week to week with no real reason.  Even without changes in diet, stool can be liquid or hard, frequent or infrequent. When it is liquid, the infant has a red, raw butt that can bleed from small open areas when you wipe it. When it is hard, the infant can strain, cry and push for an hour and then push out little hard pellets.

     Parents first need to realize that the different pooping patterns are normal. The stools will naturally change over time without any intervention – there is no cure for normal. However, the parent can help the infant get through the pooping phase with less trouble. When the stools are liquid, the cure is to protect the skin with any butt paste that has zinc oxide in it. Use lots of it and use it as thick as possible with every diaper change. If you can see the skin when you open the diaper, the stool can touch the skin and irritate it. If the skin is red or has bleeding spots, it needs even more protection. The baby will cry when you put on the cream, but you have to just do it until the raw spots heal. When the stool is hard and the infant is straining, you can help him by using a glycerin suppository when he is trying to poop. The glycerin suppository will help stretch the rectum and make it greasy. This just makes it easier for the baby to poop when the stools are hard. The parent can also feed the older infant fruit – real fruit – not fruit juice or fruit snacks. It is the fiber in the fruit (not the liquid) that helps pull water into the colon and soften the stool.

     In an infant who is healthy, eating and acting normally, differences in the color, frequency and firmness of poop are usually normal. Just try to make the child more comfortable and remember that the child who has hard stools this week will have runny stools next week.