Elisheva asked what the seedy stuff is in the stools of infants.
It is the curds (casein, literally, 'cheese stuff'), and the watery stuff
which predominates in babies suffering from 'oversupply' is the whey.
Human milk has a whey:casein ratio quite different from say, cow's milk.
Cow's milk has more casein and less whey than ours, reflecting what calves
need.

When the milk gets to spend an optimal amount of time in the baby's gut, it
gets digested more thoroughly.  You can see the action of gastric acid on
the casein portion of the milk, as small 'curds' in the stools.  Breastmilk
gives fine-grained curds which we see either in mustard-colored
sauce/liquid, or sometimes squashed together as a drier lump in older,
exclusively breastfed babies.  (My neighbor used to call this 'vacation
poop' because if the baby obliged while you were on holiday by producing
this type of stool, you almost didn't need to wash them with water before
putting on a new diaper.)

We were shown a slide in Maternal-Child Nutrition class, of three jars in
which breastmilk, formula and cow's milk were mixed with an acid solution
like the gastric juices of a baby.  It was very easy to see why breastfed
babies would be happiest, as the curds were fine and evenly distributed in
the solution.  The formula had coarser curds, and the whole milk was full of
giant chunks of curd.

When the transit time in the gut is reduced, as it will be if the baby is
getting overwhelmed with a large volume of relatively high-lactose
(predominantly whey) milk, what comes out the other end is less
well-digested.  Less liquid gets absorbed, and the curds may be absent.  I
don't know whether what appears to be mucus is a sign of local irritation,
or whether it is just that the consistency of these stools resembles what we
know as mucus in other contexts.  A relative (I think that is the right
word) of lactose, lactulose, is the ingredient in a much-used laxative.  It
is not absorbed in the GI tract and causes water to stay in the gut,
producing softer, looser stools.  More than you ever wanted to know, right?

BTW, when I was a child in Seattle I thought that the familiar word for
feces used above, was written 'duty'.  It has to do with local
pronunciation.  In Britain, and possibly in other N. American locations, a
literate child (which I was) would have heard the difference.  I even
thought the word MEANT the same thing- you had an obligation to produce at
least one daily.  The last was my inference; my own parents were never
interested in my bowel or bladder habits after I stopped using diapers.

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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