Constipation in infants what to do

Symptoms, Treatment and When to Call a Doctor

Nationwide Children’s Hospital

Constipation (con-sta-PA-shun) in infants can worry parents. Most of the time, your baby is not really constipated. They may not have developed a routine for pooping yet. Some babies do not develop a bowel movement (BM) pattern for a while.

An infant’s BM pattern can change if their diet changes, like switching from breastmilk to formula, starting solid foods, or drinking less formula than usual. If your baby’s stool (poop) is not soft or easily passed, then they may be constipated.

In rare cases, constipation may be caused by a lack of nerves going to the intestines or by a problem with the way the intestine formed at birth. Your baby can be tested for these conditions if your health care provider feels it is needed.

Signs of Constipation

• less stools than their usual pattern
• straining more than normal to have a bowel movement
• a change in how the stool looks from soft and mushy to:
  
  • small, hard pebbles, or like a large, round golf ball
  • loose and watery
• abdomen (belly) bloated or swollen with gas
• painful cramps

Treatment

• If your baby is not eating baby food yet, you may give 1 to 2 ounces of 100% fruit juice (pear, prune, cherry, or apple) once a day. Stop the juice if their stools become too loose.
• If they are old enough to eat baby foods, feed them pureed pears, peaches, or prunes instead of giving them juice.
• If your baby eats cereal, it may help to give oatmeal, wheat, or barley cereal. Rice cereal can cause constipation in some children.
• Sometimes giving your baby a warm bath to relax them or exercising their legs, like riding a bicycle, will help stimulate the bowels to move (Picture 1).
• If it has been a few days since your baby has pooped and the juice or pureed food has not worked, then you can try a glycerin suppository. Place your baby on their back. Gently push the suppository into their anus (bottom). Suppositories are meant for occasional use.
• Contact your baby’s health care provider before giving them laxatives, baby mineral oil, or enemas to treat constipation.

Medical Therapy

Your child’s health care provider may order the following treatments:

• Give your child medication.
• Check your child’s temperature using a digital, rectal thermometer. Put a small amount of petroleum jelly (Vaseline®) on its tip before inserting into the rectum. Taking a rectal temperature may stimulate the baby to pass stool.

When to Call the Health Care Provider

Call the health care provider if any of the following occurs:

• Your baby is irritable and seems to be having stomach pain. Infants will pull their legs up to their stomach and cry when they are in pain.
• Your baby has constipation and develops vomiting, and their belly looks like it is bloated or filled with gas.
• You see blood in their stool.
• Their constipation does not get better with treatment.

If you have any questions or concerns, call your baby’s health care provider.

Constipation: Infant (PDF), Spanish (PDF), Somali (PDF), Arabic (PDF), Nepali (PDF)

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New parents often worry that their babies are not pooping enough. A baby eating formula usually has a bowel movement at least once most days, but may go 1 to 2 days between bowel movements. For breastfed infants it depends on age. During the first month of life, stooling less than once a day might mean your newborn isn’t eating enough. However, breastfed infants may go several days or even a week between bowel movements, using every drop they eat to make more baby, not poop.

Infants normally work really hard to have a bowel movement, so straining at the stool isn’t necessarily alarming, even when the infant cries or gets red in the face. For an infant to have a bowel movement can be a major effort, and it shows. Just imagine trying to poop lying on your back and you’ll get the picture.

If you're concerned your baby may be constipated, ask yourself the following questions:

• Is my baby excessively fussy?

• Is my baby spitting up more than usual?

• Is my baby having dramatically more or fewer bowel movements than before?

• Are my baby's stools unusually hard, or do they contain blood related to hard stools?

• Does my baby strain for more than 10 minutes without success?

These signs can all suggest actual constipation.

Is there anything I can give my baby for constipation?

Once your baby is at least a month old, if you think they are constipated, you can try giving them a little apple or pear juice. The sugars in these fruit juices aren’t digested very well, so they draw fluid into the intestines and help loosen stool. Although fruit juice is not recommended for babies under a year of age, as a rule of thumb, you can give 1 ounce a day for every month of life up to about 4 months (a 3-month-old baby would get 3 ounces). Once your infant is taking solid foods you can try vegetables and fruits, especially that old standby, prunes. If these dietary changes don’t help, it’s time to call your child's pediatrician.

More information

• Baby's First Days: Bowel Movements & Urination

• Common Conditions in Newborns

• Choosing a Formula

• Constipation in Children

Last Updated

5/12/2022

Source

Adapted from Dad to Dad: Parenting Like a Pro (Copyright © American Academy of Pediatrics 2012)

The information contained on this Web site should not be used as a substitute for the medical care and advice of your pediatrician. There may be variations in treatment that your pediatrician may recommend based on individual facts and circumstances.

What to do with constipation in a newborn?

Constipation in a newborn or infant is an extremely unpleasant problem for parents. And it is not always possible to quickly determine what is the cause of constipation in an infant. Most often, problems with bowel movements in babies are functional in nature and are directly related to the nutrition of the child.

Signs of constipation in a child of the first year of life

• Infrequent dry and hard stools
• Sleep disorder
• Troubled state
• Pungent odor of feces and flatus

Causes of constipation in a newborn child

Causes of constipation in newborns and infants, as a rule, are not associated with a serious pathology of the internal organs or the central nervous system. The main cause of constipation in a baby is malnutrition, early transfer of a child to supplementary feeding with infant formula, frequent changes in products during artificial feeding.

When breastfeeding, the formation of constipation in children of the first year of life is affected by poor nutrition of the mother, for example, the use of large amounts of animal fats and a lack of fiber in the diet. One possible cause of constipation in newborns is dehydration.

What to do if a child has problems with stool

1. If a child under one year old has acute constipation and there is anxiety, straining and arching, we actively massage the abdomen in a clockwise direction so that hand marks remain on the skin (but not bruises!) . We spread it on the stomach, do the exercise - legs to the head, children under one year old can massage the anus, if all this does not help - a children's candle with glycerin from the refrigerator.
2. If such situations are repeated often - a mandatory consultation with a pediatrician.
3. When introducing complementary foods to a baby with a tendency to constipation, introduce fruits and vegetables into the diet first.
4. If the child is older than a year and the process is chronic - evaluate nutrition - whether there are the necessary 5 servings of vegetables and fruits per day (portion - from the palm or fist of the baby). Estimate - how much water does the child drink per day? Is there enough physical activity during the day? What is the psychological climate in the family and the attitude - not to demand a chair from the child, not to swear and not to shout, not to discuss problems with other people in his presence, not to force him to sit on the potty, not to scold him for dirty panties when anointing.
5. It is better to choose laxatives based on macrogol or lactulose with the help of a doctor.
6. In parallel with laxatives, we conduct psychological work with the child at home and with a specialist - books about defecation, toilet games, etc.