Yellow discharge in newborn baby

After the baby is born, mothers pay attention to the baby's condition all the time. Since newborns cannot express where they are uncomfortable, parents can only understand the baby's physical condition through the baby's feeding, defecation, urination, etc. For example, there are many reasons for newborns to have yellow water in the confinement period. It may be caused by improper feeding by parents, or it may be caused by the baby's illness. Let's take a closer look!

1. Physiological loose stools. Since the intestinal function of normal newborns is not yet fully developed, there are obvious differences in the stool characteristics of babies with different feeding methods. For example, breast milk is easily absorbed by newborns who are breastfed, so breastfed babies generally have more bowel movements and may experience false diarrhea. The baby may have up to 7-8 bowel movements a day, or even 10-12 times. The stools are usually thin. If the baby is in good spirits, eats well, and has normal weight gain, there is no need to worry.

2. Pathological factors

1. Non-infectious factors. Improper feeding: Parents feed their newborn babies milk powder that is too concentrated, inappropriate, sugar is added to the milk powder, the milk is too cold, or starchy foods such as rice paste are added too early, which can easily lead to food accumulation in the baby and cause diarrhea.

2. Viral or bacterial infection. Cold: When babies have a cold, they often have diarrhea symptoms. Therefore, as long as the cold is cured fundamentally, the diarrhea will naturally heal. Viral or bacterial infection: Newborns have poor immune function, especially intestinal immunity. When the intestine is infected, they are unable to weaken and neutralize the virulence of bacteria. It can be divided into intestinal infection and extraintestinal infection. Intestinal infections mainly occur in newborns who are bottle-fed or mixed-fed, because the disease enters the body through the mouth due to unclean feeding utensils.

Frequency of bowel movements in newborns: Infants begin to excrete meconium within ten hours after birth. It is black-green or dark green, sticky, odorless, and a bit like asphalt used for paving roads. Meconium is composed of bile, intestinal secretions, desquamated epithelial cells, amniotic fluid and fetal hair swallowed by the baby in the womb. It usually takes two to three days to complete, about 3 to 5 times a day. If no meconium is seen within 24 hours after birth, one should suspect congenital malformation of the digestive tract causing fecal obstruction, which requires prompt diagnosis and treatment.

Three to four days after birth, meconium gradually transitions to regular baby stool. For infants under four months old whose main food is milk, their normal stool is mostly paste-like with uniform consistency, quite similar to the paste made of fine sand and water, and may contain a small amount of granular matter as big as pepper seeds. The stools of breastfed babies are mostly golden yellow, occasionally thin like water or thick soup, slightly green, sour and odorless, and they defecate two to four times a day.