>I am trying to put the pieces together of a mind puzzle. I'm not sure how to
>word this so please forgive the rambling context.


My understanding of green stools (in otherwise basically thriving, 
happy, healthy babies, which are the sort of babies I deal with, 
mostly) is that  they 'emerge' green because the waste material has 
not had long enough in the lower part of the gut to turn yellow.

'Yellow-ification' happens after the stool is green. Anything which 
speeds up the transit of the stool will increase the liklihood of its 
expulsion while it is still green.

Now, this means that it might be green if there is not as much fat 
going in the top end - fat slows down the transit time. Green might 
also happen because of a very slight gastro infection that the baby's 
body deals with by expelling the contents of his gut more quickly 
than otherwise.

Neither of these things are worrisome in the least, if the baby 
continues to be basically thriving and happy, and the mother doesn't 
need to  do anything about them.

Some babies have green stools most of the time.  I would  say my 
experience of talking to mothers supports the idea that probably most 
babies have the occasional green or greenish stool.

>I had an ND (Natural doctor) tell me that green poops
>indicate an allergy
>was present.

This is, I think, much too dogmatic. I would like to see evidence of 
this being true before accepting it.



Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
Mail all commands to [log in to unmask]
To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or [log in to unmask])
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet or ([log in to unmask])
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]