One of the things I want to talk about, because it’s a big stress for parents, is pooping. When they’re first born, babies have lots of poop, and we’re going to look at some of what they look like when they first are born. Breastfed babies sometimes can skip pooping. They may go every three days or four days. I’ve even had some normal babies that poop only once a week, and that can be normal. As long as the baby is healthy and doing fine, it’s not anything that we would worry about.
However, we do want the babies to poop within the first 24 hours to make sure that their intestines are working fine. A lot of the phone calls we get are, my baby is constipated. They just cry and look so ugly when they’re pooping. They do not like pooping. They turn red. Their legs go up. They are just not having a good time when they’re having a bowel movement. Remember, they’ve never had a bowel movement in their entire life.
So as they’re developing as a fetus inside of you, their intestines have never worked. They’ve never eaten, so they’ve never pooped. And so it is a weird feeling. Have you ever had a stomach virus? You feel your intestines moving. That’s what the baby is feeling. It’s not that they’re constipated. It’s just that they’re experiencing new feelings that they’ve never experienced before. So don’t go too crazy, but do feel free to call and say, “Is this normal?” Most of the time, I’ll tell you that if the bowel movement is soft, then there is no way the baby is constipated.
But it is always fine to give us a call and say, “Is this normal?” It definitely can be a very stressful time. If you feel it is an emergency please call 911 however.
