What to do if your newborn baby has loose stools

In life, diseases in babies are the most important things that cannot be ignored. Generally speaking, when parents are taking care of their babies, they can judge whether the baby has a certain disease based on the color of the stool, the number of bowel movements, and the shape of the stool. Loose stools in newborn babies is a very common condition. So specifically, what should we do if our newborn baby has loose stools? Let’s take a look below.

Children may have different bowel movements per day due to differences in age, diet, bowel habits, etc. The frequency and nature of infants' feces often reflect the physiological and pathological state of the child's gastrointestinal tract. Breastfed babies, formula-fed babies, and mixed-fed babies have their own characteristics in terms of bowel movement frequency and stool characteristics. If we understand these characteristics, we can understand the digestive tract function of infants and young children through their feces, adjust the amount and proportion of food in time, promote the digestion and absorption of food by infants and young children, prevent and reduce diarrhea, and detect some diseases early so that they can be treated early.

For breastfed babies, the stool is yellow or golden yellow, with a uniform consistency like a paste or mushy paste, occasionally thin and slightly green, with a sour but not smelly taste, and they have two to four bowel movements a day.

For bottle-fed babies, their stools are light yellow or earthy gray, dry and hard, strip-shaped, often contain milk curds, and have a distinct odor. They defecate 1 to 2 times a day.

If you normally only have 1 to 2 bowel movements a day, but this suddenly increases to 5 to 6 times a day, you should consider whether you are ill. If the child has frequent bowel movements but is in generally good condition and has not lost weight, this does not indicate a disease.

Observing the stool characteristics of infants and young children can help us understand their digestion conditions.

If the baby's stool has a strong smell, it means that the protein is not digested properly. At this time, you should reduce the amount of milk appropriately or dilute the milk. If there is a lot of foam in the stool, it means that carbohydrates are not digested properly, and you must reduce or even stop feeding starchy foods. If the stool looks creamy, it indicates fat malabsorption and the intake of fatty foods should be reduced.

If a breastfed baby has watery stools, you can shorten the time of each feeding and let the baby eat the first half of the milk. Because the first half of breast milk contains more protein, it is easy to digest and rich in nutrition, while the second half contains more fat and is difficult to digest. If necessary, the mother can drink a large glass of light salt water half an hour to an hour before breastfeeding to dilute the milk and then breastfeed the child.

What should you do if your newborn baby has loose stools? The above is an introduction to the different symptoms corresponding to different stool conditions of newborn babies. Generally speaking, when the stool of a breastfed newborn baby becomes loose, it means that expectant mothers need to pay attention to adjusting the feeding time during breastfeeding. Therefore, parents must observe the stool conditions of newborn babies more.