How many times a day is normal?

Under normal circumstances, people need to defecate every day, but everyone's physical constitution is different, so the frequency and habits of bowel movements also vary. Especially for newborn babies, their gastrointestinal development is not yet complete, so their bowel habits and regularity are not certain. Some babies defecate once a day, while others defecate two to three times a day. So how many times a day is normal for a baby to have bowel movements?

1. Newborn baby

After the baby is born, he or she has not yet consumed too much food. Generally speaking, when the baby is in the mother's body, he will ingest some amniotic fluid, shed epithelial cells, some fetal hair, etc. Therefore, babies at this stage generally pass meconium. The color of meconium is usually dark green or black green. The child has not eaten any salty food yet, so the feces he excretes do not have a bad smell. Children at this age will normally have bowel movements three to five times. If the newborn has not had a bowel movement one day after birth. New parents should immediately find out if their baby has fecal infarction, which requires prompt medical treatment.

2. One-week-old baby

After the baby's meconium is excreted, it will gradually transition to normal baby feces. Babies under four months old are generally fed mainly with breast milk. Therefore, the fetus's stool will be mushy and watery. Sometimes it will appear in a paste form, which is generally golden in color and has a sour taste, but still no odor. Children at this age may have two to four bowel movements a day. Therefore, newborn babies will have more frequent bowel movements. After one week of birth, the baby's bowel movement frequency will become more stable. This is also because after the baby consumes breast milk, breast milk is digested faster, and the diet is mainly breast milk and relatively simple, so the baby's bowel movements will be more stable.

The gastrointestinal development of babies at different stages is different, so each baby’s bowel movement habits and frequency of bowel movements are also different. However, as long as the baby's bowel movements are regular and there is no abnormality in the bowel movements, then whether it is one or two bowel movements, it is a normal phenomenon. If the stool is loose, it is most likely caused by a cold stomach and intestines.