Question
Description of the baby’s condition: My baby is over 40 days old and is exclusively breastfed. Every time the baby eats breast milk, the stool is not good. It’s yellow, watery, and loose, with a bit of gas coming out when they pass stool. The baby cries during bowel movements. For two days, I was sick and stopped breastfeeding, and the baby didn’t have diarrhea when they were fed formula milk. But the formula might be a bit constipating. After I started breastfeeding again, the baby had diarrhea again. Why is that? Is there a problem with my milk, or have I eaten something I shouldn’t have? The following are the foods I’ve eaten in recent days: Cabbage and lean meat ball soup (ate more meat balls than cabbage; had a bowl of soup), amaranth (ate very few), scrambled eggs with tomatoes, pork hoof stewed soybean soup (only ate the lean meat and tendons of the hoof), winter…
Answer
It is relatively rare for babies to experience breastfeeding-related diarrhea, which usually only occurs in a small number of babies under 6 months old. The main reasons for breastfeeding-related diarrhea are two-fold: one is that there may be a high level of prostaglandins in the breast milk, which can promote the movement of small intestinal smooth muscle, increase the secretion of water and electrolytes, and produce loose stools. The other reason is lactose intolerance in the baby. If the mother notices that the baby has 3-7 bowel movements a day, with pale green stools that are frothy and watery, containing bubbles and milk residue; with an acidic smell and sometimes streaks of transparent mucus; without fever during diarrhea, no obvious pain or crying from the baby; no infection abnormalities found in stool tests; with moderate diarrhea and no other symptoms; the baby is lively and has good appetite; although the duration of diarrhea is long, weight gain is about 300 grams every 10 days