Question
My baby is over 40 days old and is exclusively breastfed. He often has diarrhea while breastfeeding, with yellow watery stools and sometimes a bit of mucus when passing gas. The baby also cries and is fussy during bowel movements. The doctor suggested stopping breastfeeding for two days and switching to formula milk, which improved the diarrhea, but the baby then had some constipation. After resuming breastfeeding, the diarrhea came back. Is there something wrong with my breastmilk, or have I eaten certain foods that caused this? My recent diet includes cabbage and minced pork ball soup, water spinach, stir-fried tomato with eggs, and pork trotter stewed with soybean soup.
Answer
Breastmilk-induced diarrhea is not common and usually only occurs in a small number of infants under 6 months old. There are two main reasons for breastmilk-induced diarrhea: one is that the breastmilk contains a higher amount of prostaglandins, causing an increase in the movement of the small intestine smooth muscle, which increases the secretion of water and electrolytes; the other is that the baby may have lactose intolerance. If the baby has 3 to 7 bowel movements a day, with stools that are light green, foamy, watery, accompanied by foam and milk residue, and sometimes transparent mucus strings, and if the stool test shows no infection abnormalities, and the baby is active and has good appetite, normal weight gain, this condition may be breastmilk-induced diarrhea. This is not a disease, but if diarrhea persists for a long time, it may require timely treatment to prevent serious consequences such as growth stunting and malnutrition.