Nikki, I agree that stooling is not necessarily relaxing and that a little
pushing isn't necessarily awful.

However, a baby that is really uncomfortable when stooling -- that has enough
discomfort to cry about it, say -- may really be signaling something wrong.

My personal anecdote:  We had a party for my eldest when she was three weeks
old, and since nobody drank up the coffee there was a lot of milk left over.
I was sure I "ought" to be drinking more milk anyway, so dutifully began to
drink the stuff up, maybe 6 or 7 glasses a day.   But I didn't associate that
with my daughter's suddenly beginning to strain, cry, and double up in pain
when stooling -- until nearly a week later, when a friend asked how the baby
was doing and I expressed concern about this stooling pattern, and she asked
whether by any chance I was drinking a lot of milk!   Within 24 hours of
cutting out dairy I had a baby who, yes, maybe squirmed and pushed a little
to stool, but without any really substantial discomfort.

So I guess my answer would be, ask the parents a couple more questions about
just how uncomfortable that stooling baby really is.

Elisheva Urbas
NYC

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