Dear Folks:
  I did an informal study on stooling during the first week of life in the
exclusively breastfed infant. The literature search revealed that there was no
information, except stooling frequencies for bottle fed babies, or babies
breastfed in the style of the 40s and 50s, where babies were routinely given
water, orange juice, and oleum percomorphum (a fish oil derivative).
  I followed 20 exclusively breastfeeding women from the day of the baby's
birth up to day 8 with a daily telephone call to ask about breastfeeding and
about infant stooling. I also looked to see if there was any relationship
between stooling frequency and weight gain. There wasn't. There was no pattern
that emerged except that all babies had stooled by the 2nd day postpartum. All
babies thrived.
        I personally don't like to take the average of all the bowel movements and
give that to the mother because "average" isn't really helpful. If her baby
stools less, she worries. And if her baby stools more, she worries. It is more
helpful to teach a mom about what a healthy baby acts like: that it starts
smiling in the first week of life, and wakes up to feed and also wakes up to
look around. Baby also pees and either stools or passes gas. Baby feeds at
least 6 times per day (which number I have seen in NMAA literature as the
bottom line) and probably more, and needs to be with her all the time, almost
like she is still pregnant.
   There is presently another, more formal study going on in Philadelphia
about stooling, that is finding the same things as I have reported here.
   The baby is more than the sum of its feeding frequency and number of
diapers. Warmly, Nikki Lee