>From Pediatric News, Sept. 1999, p. 40.
Stool Pattern Offers Clues to Inadequate Milk Intake in Young Breast-fed
Infants

Stanford CA- Asking parents about their young breast-fed infant's stool
pattern provides a valuable clue about whether the infant is getting
adequate amounts of milk, according to Dr. Marianne R. Neifert, medical
consultant to the lactation program at Rose Medical center, Denver.

She calls it her "Rule of Four."  By day 4 of life, the stool should turn
yellow, with small curds.  These "milk stools" reflect the baby's increased
intake after the mother's milk comes in, she said at a meeting on advances
in perinatal and pediatric nutrition jointly sponsored by Stanford
University and Syposia Medicus.

Infants who are being adequately nourished should have four or more loose,
yellow stools per day.  This pattern should last at least four weeks.  When
infants reach 1-2 months old, stool frequency may diminish and volume of
each stool may increase.

"If the infant is one week of age and still passing just a dot of meonium
or has infrequent, green-brown transition stool, or a scant volume of
stool, that infant has insufficient milk intake until proven otherwise",
Dr. Neifert said.

The young infant's urination pattern can also help in assessment of
breast-feeding, but it's not usually as sensitive as the stool pattern.
"By the time  urine output decreases, you're further down the path of
inadequate intake, " she said.

After milk comes in, infants should pass colorless urine at least 6-8 times
a day, typically with every feeding.  Urate crstals, also known as "brick
dust" are common at 48 hours of age, but at one week their appearance
suggests inadequate breast milk intake.  Scant or dark yellow urine is also
a sign of poor inatke, she said.


>From me - I think that Symposia Medicus is formula sponsored, so of course
the answer for inadequate intake in their opinion is probably  supplement
:-(  I was sorry that the article didn't mention "fix the breastfeeding,
feed the baby, protect the supply" ideas that we discuss so often on
Lactnet. Sincerely, Pat in SNJ

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html