My youngest son was the happiest baby on earth, but he was having a bm
only once a week or so by the time he was a few weeks old. I knew this
was wrong and did three things. I eliminated soy from my diet, took him
to a homeopath and took him to the chiropractor. He pooped within 20
minutes of getting the homeopthic remedy and had a normal pattern from
then on. At 7, he is still sensitive to soy and can only tolerate it
once per week or more often when we are in China (can't figure that one
out). He also still has a healing response to the same homeopathic
remedy, no matter what his ailment might be. Maybe the food allergy
would have ultimately caused obvious symptoms and I would have
eliminated it anyway, but I am glad I responded to the first sign of
imbalance, rather than waiting for more severe symptoms.
So, in case anyone was waiting with baited breathe for my standard
reply to this topic--not one thing I have ever read on Lactnet has
convinced me that pasty, infrequent bm's are normal for any baby.
Common, yep, normal, no. Nutirtionists and all manner of holistic
practitioners I have worked with and talked to (acupuncturists, doctors
of TCM, PT's, chiropractors, naturopaths, etc) agree that human beings
are meant to have one bm per meal. Hence, breastfed (otherwise known as
normal) babies poop many times per day--they eat many times per day!
Adults who have healthy guts have 2-3 bm's per day. I believe we see a
bell-shaped curve here because we have so few people with healthy guts
to assess what is the physiologic norm. You simply cannot use people
who consume the SAD as a compass for what is physiologically normal. I
think so many adults make this argument, b/c they themselves have poor
gut function and don't know it. To me, it is like saying "I was formula
fed and I turned out fine". Compared to what?
You could argue that human milk is far from the SAD and I would agree,
but gut health defines the health of all other body systems (which is
one reason why breastfeeding is a human mandate). So, a baby isn't
fussing? How many adults who have one bm every several days fuss about
it? It is still a sign to any holistic practitioner of imbalance. So
many moms intuitively know that this is not okay and seek answers and
are dismissed with the bell-shaped curve argument. As you can guess, I
validate my clients' concern and we look into the underlying cause. In
every single baby, I have found that gut function (ant thus stooling
patterns) normalize when structural problems are addressed (often these
kids have a restricted diaphragm), allergies are removed from the diet
or the mother's diet is addressed. Sometimes, it also reflects an
imbalance in milk composition.
In the past I heard the argument that a change in pattern due to such
treatment is no argument that the treatment was needed. I have heard
the argument that breastmilk is so well utilized that there is no
waste. I have heard that it doesn't matter so long as the baby is
content. Of course there is waste--it is just sitting in there for days
on end. That's why it is pasty when it comes out. Common sense alone
should tell us how unhealthy that is! Healthy gut motility is essential
to a healthy organism--it is not incidental. Even adults who detoxify
their bodies and shift to healthy diets find that after years of
constipation, they suddenly have daily to twice daily bowel movements.
IMO, this baby should be assessed for allergies and possible structural
concerns.
Jennifer Tow, IBCLC, CT, USA
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