Green poo!

[maxmum]

Hi, can anyone shed any light on the reason my two month old baby has had very green poo for nearly a month now!? I took him to the doctors about a fortnight ago and he just said that babies digestive systems are very delicate and some imbalance will be causing it and not to worry but i can't help thinking that something i'm eating must be upsetting his little tum  I've tried cutting out dairy products with no success and i'm not sure what else it could be.  He doesn't seem upset by it but he does often wake in the night with a lot of gas coming out the bottom end which sometimes makes him cry so i guess must be painful.  Thanks.

[daisymelan]

It is likely that you have a fast letdown.  This is generally one of the causes of the green poo.  Nursing from a laying position can help with this.

Also, I read your other post and responded.  Perhaps the two things are related.  Maybe your little one actually wakes because of your fast letdown and maybe he has some tummy issues and that's why he wakes.  This is just a big IF but things are all usually related with the little babies.

[maxmum]

Hi, i responded to your reply to my other post before i read this one but it seems to make sense to me.  A lot of his problems seem to be to do with his tummy hurting him.  I'm not sure how you can tell if you have a fast let down but i know that often when i'm feeding Max pulls his head away like he's getting too much at once and my milk usually keeps spraying out even when he's not feeding, i often end up covered in milk after a feed.

What can i do about a fast let down? Should i express some before i feed him?

[maisy]

Hi, dont know if this helps but my daughter is 2 months old aswell and her poo has been green too. She is bottle fed so maybe it is an age thing too?

[ladyscott]

My son also had green poo.  He's a month old (corrected age is 2 days).  He also had bad gas and would be up early in the morning screaming in pain and pushing and grunting until he passed gas and projectile pooed.  I did research and found that he may have lactose overdose, that is, my letdown is fast and he's getting too much foremilk and not enough hindmilk.  This made sense to me because he's not a very efficient feeder, although he IS gaining weight (1 1/2 oz a day).

For the past couple of days, I've been working on getting more hindmilk in him.  I do this by starting his first feeding on say my right breast.  The next feeding, I continue him on my right breast.  If it "empties" and he's still hungry, I'll switch or my left and then for the next feed, continue on the left, etc.  I also pump more now, and if I pump a lot of rich hind milk, I'll give him a medicine syringe full of the hindmilk as a supplement.  For the gas, I started him on non-alcohol gripewater. 

Since I started this, he's not only sleeping a bit better, he's not as gassy, and his stools are more yellow.  Also, last night was the first night in a long time he wasn't up in the early morning screaming in agony as he tried to pass gas. 

ladyscott

[maxmum]

Good to know Max isn't alone with his green poo problems! There's some really helpful stuff here and i'mdefinately going to have a go at encouraging him to empty one breast before he goes onto the other, this way i can be certain he's had some hindmilk.

thanks

[ladyscott]

My son does that too!!  He'll latch on, then when the milk starts flowing, he lets go and I'm soaked!  Then his face and my nipple are really wet and slippery and he has a hard time latching on.  So, what I do is when I fold down my bra cup, I stuff a corner of a burp cloth there.  That way it catches the milk flow without soaking my tummy or my bra.  Then, I have the burp cloth handy right there to wipe my nipple and my son's face so he can latch on better. 

I thought about expressing some milk before he latches on but two reasons are stopping me:
1. When he's hungry he lets me know right away with quite a lot of crying until he's on the breast.  Trying to pump with a screaming/wriggling hungry little boy would be quite difficult. 
2. He was preterm and had eating and weight gain issues at the beginning.  I also had a milk supply issue at one point, so I have this fear that he's not getting enough to eat.  (It's just a fear, he's gaining 1 1/2 ounces a day!)  I fear that if I express some of the milk before feeding him, he won't get enough.

So, my method is the one I mentioned in my earlier post.  After his last feeding, I changed his diaper and he had a large amount of lovely yellow poo!! 

I'm just guessing, but this is how I tell if I'm giving forth foremilk or hindmilk:  I squeeze my nipple and if a cloudy liquid comes out, that's the foremilk.  If I squeeze and a white, creamy liquid comes out, that's the hindmilk.  The foremilk seems to spray fast and hard when I pump, while the hindmilk seems to flow more slowly in a thicker stream, or it just drips out.  I'm not sure how correct or scientific this is, but this is what I go by.

Now, if only I can figure out how to help him deal with his gas.  I'm also concerned about reflux.  Lately, he's been spitting up more and definately prefers to be upright.  I can't even cradle him in my arms.  He prefers to be upright against my chest or over my shoulder.
Best wishes,

ladyscott

[fleadle]

This happened to a friend of mine when she was BF her DD......in her case her dd was not latching on correctly & her nipple was basically being "Kinked" into an L shape by baby 's feeding position, this meant that she was only getting foremilk & not hind milk & this had the knock on effect of poorly tummy & green poo.

She saw her hv who helped her get DD latched on correctly & everything has been ok since (she is still BF at almost 9 months!!)

Obviously this might not be the case for you, but it kinda makes sense to go back to the basics sometimes.

[mena]

My DS is 5 months old now and when he was 2 1/2, I brought him to a pediatrician while visiting my parents, and the doc told me that green poo might be caused by lack of food... meaning the baby mightn't be eating enough. So when reading the previous posts about babs not getting enough hind milk, it made sense to me... I'd try to get baby to drink more hind milk.

Having said that, I'm having problems at the moment with DS and he's having green poos as well, so I'm going to follow the advice here!

HTH

[maxmum]

Hi, I've written in more detail on my other post but just wanted to say that Max has been doing some lovely big yellow poos since i've been trying to get him to take more hindmilk.  You appear to have solved our problem ladies, thanks a million. xx

[Samuel's mum]

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