way tmi green poo (inc pic, sorry)

[NYGirl]

My 4 month ebf dd has had green poos for a few days now. She was ill last week and had mucousy poo but this is different, she had jabs on tues not sure if that is a contributing factor, please tell me if you have seen this shade before, what could it be, should I worry? Thank you

 

[doggylover]

No clue, sorry, but stalking as my LO has also been having green (more like dark green for me though) since Tuesday. I thought it was due to me eating spinach, but its now Saturday and she's still having them.

 

[NYGirl]

Right, we are now a week on and they are all dark green. Dr didn't care but i'm still worried. Any ideas?

 

[doggylover]

Still green with me as well. All I've heard is fore milk/hind milk imbalance. I was told that she is getting too much fore milk and not enough hind. That would make sense to me as she is a big snacker. So I've been feeding off the same side twice in a row to try and make sure she gets the hind milk too, but no change

 

[NYGirl]

Can't be that with me, she feeds 30-50 mins at a time and only one side per feed, so I ruled that out

 

[Tiger22]

My lo has had green poop for almost a week now...she just turned 2 months...doctor said it could be something to do with my diet but that hasn't changed...also I have been doing one boob at a time in case imbalance but still green! Not sure why...?

 

[tokyo]

My lo had green poo for the longest time, drs and hvs not at all bothered, I did a lot of reading and foremilk/hindmilk imbalance always came up but I was sure it wasn't that for us as lo always fed for a decent length of time and there was no change when block feeding.

At our LLL meeting this week we discussed fore/hind milk imbalance and apparently a true imbalance is very rare. All mums are different, some have a lot of foremilk, others much less, so for some women even a short feed will include lots of hindmilk for baby. Also, babies apparently are amazingly smart and actually control their calorie intake, so if they get a lot of foremilk they will feed longer and if they're getting plenty of hindmilk they will feed for shorter periods (cool, right?) Our group leader told us that in all her years being a breastfeeding counsellor she'd only every met 1 woman with a true fore/hind milk imbalance (of course there may have been others who had induced an imbalance by doing timed feedings etx but these cases were easily remedied by letting lo feed on demand and stay on the breast as long as they wanted)

I gave up trying to work out what made los poo green, I figured if she was happy and healthy and gaining weight well and medical professionals weren't worried then it probably wasnt an issue, and eventuallu poos returned to normal. Having done more reading since i think it was a secondary lactose intolerance (only a temporary thing) caused by antibiotics and thrush meds that she was on for several weeks as a tiny baby. Has your lo been ill or been on any meds that could have upset the balance in the gut?

 

[New Mrs W]

My Frankie went through a green poo phase, although he was ff. I showed HV and she said green poo is w classic sign of tummy ache from wind. Is your LO particularly irritable lately? Particularly on an evening? Does the poo smell worse than usual? I found that extra long winding helped Frankie.

Just FYI, I once found a poo colour chart on babycentre.com which showed green poo and it said any shade of green/yellow/brown is totally normal. The only poo to worry about is black poo as it can be black due to blood, white poo as it can mean a problem with the liver or poo that contains visible blood. X

 

[NYGirl]

Thanks everyone. She is no different to usual but the lactose intolerancesounds likely. In the past 6 Weeks I've been on 3 lots of antibiotics for mastitis and tonsillitis and had thrush so both been treated for that. I thought it might be linked to dairy so have really cut down this week but made no difference. Tokyo, how doff you get rid of it? Have you weaned your lo yet? If so does this mean they can't have lactose at all? Thanks

 

[tokyo]

Thanks everyone. She is no different to usual but the lactose intolerancesounds likely. In the past 6 Weeks I've been on 3 lots of antibiotics for mastitis and tonsillitis and had thrush so both been treated for that. I thought it might be linked to dairy so have really cut down this week but made no difference. Tokyo, how doff you get rid of it? Have you weaned your lo yet? If so does this mean they can't have lactose at all? Thanks

Didnt do anything to get rid of it, just fed lo as normal and eventually we got yellow poo back. We're baby led weaning now and she eats everything without any problems, no reactions to dairy/lactose or anything.

I'm no expert but from what I understand the anti biotics/thrush meds or an illness upsets the balance in your baby's gut, making them temporily unable to properly digest the lactose in your milk. This makes them windy, uncomfortable and makes the poo green. After a while off the meds or recovered from the illness the gut restores itself and is able to handle the milk properly again and the problem goes away. Dont worry, if that is what the issue is then its temporary and will go of it's own accord in time Some babies have primary lactose intolerance which means they dont produce lactase (the enzyme which digests lactose) from birth, but I understand that's fairly uncommon and often runs in families. Perhaps give it a few weeks once you are both off all meds to see if you get back to normal and then take it from there (provided all is well with lo, of course). My friend's baby has a suspected primary lactose intolerance (his dad has it) and she could tell the difference in lo when she wad ebfing him if she had milk in coffee etc. He never had green poo though!

 

[NYGirl]

Tokyo thank you so much, makes a lot of sense and very reassuring

 

[leylak]

A doctor who helps mothers through forums says that green poo means the baby is feeding too much.

 

[tokyo]

A doctor who helps mothers through forums says that green poo means the baby is feeding too much.

Not really possible, as you cannot overfeed a breastfed baby. You can overfeed if you are giving expressed milk from a bottle but not if you are feeding direct from the breast. With an ebf baby there is no such thing as feeding 'too much'. (If in doubt check out sites such as kellymom, the nct, the nhs etc.)