Diagnostic indicators of diarrhea in children

Parents must closely monitor their baby's bowel movements after birth. From birth to slowly adapting to artificial feeding, the shape and color of the baby's bowel movements vary greatly. It is not necessarily that the baby has diarrhea just because the stool is sticky and fluid. Parents must carefully distinguish this. The following is our detailed introduction.

The feces discharged within 24 hours after birth are meconium, which is dark green, sticky, and odorless. It is a mixture of gastrointestinal secretions, bile, and fetal sebum contained in swallowed amniotic fluid during the fetal period. The feces discharged 2 to 3 days after birth are transitional stools, which are brown and formed by a mixture of meconium and breast milk. 3 to 4 days after birth, the meconium is completely discharged and turns into normal yellow stools.

Breast-fed babies have golden yellow, soft and mushy stools, or small rice-like particles, and are sour but not smelly. Generally, breast-fed newborns have more bowel movements than milk-fed newborns, 4 to 6 times a day, or even 7 to 8 times a day. However, if a breast-fed baby's stool is dark green and mushy, it often indicates that the breast milk is insufficient and the baby is in a semi-starved state. Formula milk or fresh milk should be added.

The feces of artificially fed babies are light yellow, uniform, hard paste-like, dry, smelly, and sometimes mixed with milk lumps. The bowel movement is rare, about 2 to 4 times a day. However, if the feces of artificially fed babies are found to be gray, hard, and smelly, it often indicates that there is too much protein and too little sugar. The ratio of milk to sugar and the type of milk powder must be changed. Some babies have some feces on their diapers every time they change their diapers. If the feces are more uniform, not much water, no mucus, or occasionally contain a few milk lumps, it is normal.

Some babies do not have bowel movements every day, and may only do so once every 2 to 3 days. They do not have any effort during bowel movements, so this cannot be considered as constipation. It is also normal.

If your baby's stool has the following abnormalities, you should check the feeding situation or consult a doctor:

1. Abnormal stool characteristics: If the stool contains more water and less feces, accompanied by a distinct sour smell, green foamy stool, mucus, pus and blood in the stool, tofu-like stool, or even grayish white stool, bloody stool or tarry stool, etc.

2. Increased bowel movement frequency: The bowel movement frequency increases compared to usual, with more than 5 to 10 bowel movements per day.

3. Constipation: No bowel movement for more than 3 days, dry stools resembling sheep dung particles, and difficulty in defecation, which often causes anal rupture. If the above stool abnormalities occur, the baby should be taken to the hospital pediatric department for diagnosis and treatment in time. Green loose stools are more common after catching a cold or eating indigestible food, and the number of bowel movements per day is often 5 to 10 times. Dark brown foamy stools are more common in babies who are mixed-fed, add rice soup, rice paste and other cereal foods too early, and consume too much sugar, such as adding too much sugar to milk powder, or feeding too much boiled water. By properly adjusting the dietary structure, most babies can return to normal.

Warm reminder: The shape of a baby's stool a few days after birth is sometimes very similar to the shape of childhood diarrhea. If parents are not sure, they can send the baby to a doctor for diagnosis and determine with the doctor's help whether the baby has diarrhea symptoms.