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Hi Everyone,
My baby girl is 12 weeks. I am Exclusively breast feeding. She frequently has green stools. she is gaining weight well and is happy most of the time. I have given up dairy, coffee ( was already gluten free). I have had oversupply issues but that seems to be finally regulating. Has anyone else experienced green stools with their breast fed baby? Could the pouch contribute to this somehow? My biggest fear of course is my child having to go through what I have been through. Thanks for the time,
Kate

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Your pouch has nothing to do with breast feeding your baby and their stool color, except for the fact you may want to hydrate yourself more tan the average person, especially when baby is tiny and exclusively nursing.

If it's not green constantly, I probably wouldn't worry if all else is well, but I would talk to the pediatrician or a lactation specialist. They say green stools can equal too much foremilk and not enough hindmilk, so maybe that's related to your oversupply issues with baby taking in too much watery foremilk and not enough fatty hindmilk at time (getting a big rush of watery stuff at the start and filling up too fast before the more nutritious hindmilk).

And FWIW, I exclusively breast fed my daughter. She nursed for 16 months, never gave her an ounce of formula, because of the fact I'd read you could help decrease the chance of IBD by doing that (and other autoimmune issues). My sister gave her kid formula. Mine? Has had Kawasaki's Disease, and did get indeterminate/Crohn's colitis with arthritis, anyway. My sister's kid is healthy as a horse. Didn't work in my case to prevent it.
rachelraven
I second everything Rachel said. If it's not consistent and you are still seeing the yellow seedy stools as well, it's likely too much foremilk. However, if you are seeing mucous or blood, I would be more concerned. When my daughter was about 10 weeks old, I started to see the green stools. They proceeded to mucous and then started seeing streaks of blood with the next 2 weeks. Turns out that she was intolerant to dairy protein (not uncommon). I know you said that you stopped dairy, but dairy will stay in your system for up to 3 weeks they told me. At the point she was diagnosed, her colon tissue was too beat up so they had me stop nursing and switch her to an easy digestible formula. She improved 100% within days. I was sad to stop abruptly. I even pumped and dumped for weeks in hopes of returning to nursing, but she was just doing too well on the formula. Good news about the dairy protein intolerance...they usually grow our of it by 1 year old. She transitioned to regular milk just fine.
clz81
I exclusively breastfed my daughter for two years and we had a looooooooot of green poops that I was so worried about for weeks. A couple times she even had a little blood. Her pedi assured me that green, even slightly mucousy is fine. The bits of blood were due to a tiny fissure. Went to see a pedi GI who said green is totally normal, the only colors they worry about are black or white (I want to say red too but I can't quite remember). As long as the baby is pooping and peeing regularly and is gaining wait, it should be fine!
Katie
Bebekspor
Thanks so much for the replies. The green stools have continued. The little streaks of blood are most likely due to a fissure which was confirmed by the pedi today. The oversupply has continued and am at a loss at this point. Feeling pretty discouraged.
I have been off dairy for almost 3 months now, don't eat wheat or soy... Gonna try not eating nuts for a week and see if there are any improvements...
K
Sorry you are struggling. This would be my suggestion at this point. Since you have an oversupply issue, before nursing, I would pump off the foremilk for a minute or so and then start nursing or pump a full bottle from one side ensuring a good amount of hindmilk. This way you can test the foremilk/hindmilk theory. After a couple days of this, you would see a difference if that was the problem. It's a good start. I too had oversupply issues and always let the foremilk milk run into a towel or something otherwise my kids would choke ;-) The foremilk is important for hydration, but you may have a lot of it like i did. Pumping into a bottle will give you a good indication of your milk composition.
clz81

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