Jack, you pointed out that diarrhoea in the breastfed baby is not so easy to
define. Oh so true. But I have seen (somewhere ...) that > 10 stools/24
hours could be classified as diarrhoea. And (somewhere else) that a
breastfed baby taking in the region of 600 ml/day of breastmilk does not
need oral rehydration therapy/solutions - first choice of liquid would
always be breastmilk.
Ghastly as it may sound I have worked with two mothers whose exclusively
breastfed babies picked up shigella. Neither were very sick, but the
mothers knew something was up and had to be very persistent with their GPs
to get stool tests done. So I never get complacent about diarrhoea.
Pamela Morrison IBCLC, Zimbabwe