is anyone elses preterm baby have issues with consitpation?

Aimee - posted on 01/14/2011

infacol hit helped mine its to drops before every feed. gripe water that u can give as many times a day as u like as its only herbel good luck hope this helps

Kylee - posted on 12/22/2010

Hi My son was born at 33 weeks gestation and we had problems with him from the start, I breast feed him for 6 months, I had to even add callories to his diet, and decided on the 7 months to try him on formula s26, that went fine and until we found out he had reflux, so went to s26 Reflux formula with him. He is now 12 months old only on cows milk as we have still have problems with him.Plus my daughter who is now 4 was born at 25 weeks she had reflux uptil she was 3 years of age.

Liz - posted on 12/09/2010

We had similar problems with our daughter, but the following solved it:-



- 4 oz prune juice a day, usually divided into 1oz per each of 4 feedings, mixed with 5 oz of formula. Obviously our baby is older than yours, so the best thing would be to ask your pediatrician or children's nurse what a good dose should be. If they haven't already examined your baby, they'll probably want to.

- Barley cereal. Rice cereal is constipating, oatmeal is in the middle, barley cereal has a mild laxative effect.

- Lactulose prescribed by her physician, though we tailed this off and then stopped it once the prune juice was really working.

- Avoid applesauce or applejuice, bananas etc. as these are mildly constipating. If you're introducing solids, avoid any root vegetables. You can restart once your baby has softer stools and seems to be able to pass them without effort.



If your baby is showing signs of discomfort, try warm baths. The very smallest tip of a thermometer inserted into her anus with some vaseline lubricant can sometimes stimulate a bowel movement, but you must be careful not to insert very much of the tip. If at all unsure, see your pediatrician instead and he/she can do a rectal exam and show you how much you can insert.

Nicki - posted on 12/05/2010

pear juice works better than apple juice, and you can try bathing her in a bath with bicarbonate soda added to it

Charlotte - posted on 11/22/2010

My LO was born at 33+2 with many health issues. Thankfully she is ok now. She suffers with constipation really badly. She was prescribed latchalose which she takes twice daily. She also has supositories. She used to go for up to 2 weeks with out going but the meds do help. The latchulose seems to help her, but she still goes a week at a time.
Go back to the doctor and see if he can help with anything a little stronger?
Good Luck! x

Cheryl - posted on 11/18/2010

My daughter has always had this issue and I have to give her prune juice every day. I started her at 2ml`s a day and worked up from there she is now almost a year old and get 20 mls a day if we miss a day then she dosen`t go and gets really bad craps. This was recommended by our home health care nurse

Ashley - posted on 10/23/2010

My son was a 26 weeker now 6 months (3 mos adjusted) and will NOT and has only gone by himself 3 times. The only thing that works is the suppositories. My doctor finally allowed me to use prune juice which helped for two days. Have you tried doing a rectal temperature? Sometimes it works for my son because I think it feels the same as a suppository, we are going to visit the GI specialist next Thursday to see if we can get things moving for him! I feel awful because he is miserable all the time with gas and is bearing down constantly to try to get himself to go. If I find out anything from the GI I will share more!

Kerri - posted on 10/23/2010

My daughter used to get constipated when she was younger. What worked for me was a teaspoon of brown sugar in her bottle once a day. Good luck :)

Brittany - posted on 10/07/2010

have you tired prune juice to soften the stool to make it easier?my son has an ostomy and we were constantly fighting with constipation he gets 5 ml of prune juice twice a day and its not so bad anymore also if shes on any medications that cause it my son was on reglan for reflux and he used to scream while he went and taking him off the reglan made a huge change!hope maybe this helps

Laura - posted on 07/16/2010

my little boy was 6 weeks early, he tends to be constipated regularly but the doctors told me 2 dilate a bit of fruit juice with water & rub some vaseline on his bum it has worked 4 me, good luck it can make you worried

Amber - posted on 07/15/2010

My son was born at 34 weeks and the first few months he would some times gets constipated so we read to put the tip of a q tip in the anus and it worked. It's sounds cazy and I was scared but now he is 4 months and for the last few months he's had no problem. I told my sister in law about the q tip thing but she was too scared to do it so she took my neice to the docs because she wasn't having bowel movements and the doc shoved her finger up my neices butt and then my sister in law said she wished she would have done the q tip.

Lindsay - posted on 07/10/2010

My 34weeker did the exact same thing...have u tried giving her pedialyte in place of a feeding it works for my izzy everytime...3-4 oz of warm pedialyte should do the trick

Jessica - posted on 06/27/2010

My baby had constipation problems since she was born at 30 wks. When I took her home I didnt want to resort to the thermometer or the glycerin supp. The pedi recomemded a dollip of dark karo syrup 2 or 3 times a day and that works great.

Boo - posted on 06/26/2010

try some 1st foods prunes in her milk or in her rice cereal-it always makes a blast for my girl-

Tanya - posted on 06/25/2010

Change your food- if you start having prune juice it will pass to her also.
Stop the cereal, it will make her more constipated.
Gabriel used to only go once a day, and he would be misserable until he went. He has a huge umbilical hernia, and I am sure that is part of his issue.
We found gripe water actually really worked for him. Our doc told us we could use it as much as we wanted (it is non-alcoholic kind). we found that after we gave it he would have a huge poop within 20 mins... and the screaming would stop.
We were told it was colick too, but he would literally scream and once he had the gripe water and pooped he would stop and he would go to sleep. my husband re-named it the "shut-up" medicine.

Khadija - posted on 06/14/2010

Hi there, i've got a preterm baby as well :) since she is not fully on your breast milk than i think you shouldtry to give her some water, cause as we were told in the hospitals that water can be harmful to a breast feeding baby cause the breast milk contains enogh water but for babies who ae taking additional stuff then water can be helpful...all the best

Angela - posted on 06/01/2010

I had to help my baby go, at first just by holding her knees to her chest. Then my doctor told me to try putting just the tip of the thermometer in her anus. That worked, but not enjoyable. I gave her one dose of the gas drops and she pooped about 8 hours later and about 5 times during the next day. I love gas drops. she will be 2 months tomorrow and she eats half breastmilk half neosure formula. She was born at 33 wks, and was in nicu for 4 and home for 4.

Megan - posted on 05/26/2010

my daughter was a preemie and her digestive system was not developed. We had to used glycerin suppositories and start her on apple juice at 5 weeks old and use gas drops. she was on breast milk and formula and went to formula only at 3 months and didn't start cereal until 5 months and from age 6 months on, she was fine. She is 6 years old now and doing fine - no problems that way either back when she was potty trained.

Lyneeda - posted on 05/23/2010

my baby was born at 24 wks an is now 33 wks an im goin thru that right now she be constitpated every few days they have to keep giving supositories an i just keep asking them what csn be done to prevent this from happening they keep telling me that its a condition of prematurity an she will outgrow it her heart rate drops everytime she makes a bowel movement i have to hold her legs up and bring them towards her stomach an it helps her push it out easier but it hurts me to my heart to see her have to work so hard she is in the hospital so im gonna ask for a change in formula that may help!maybe pear juice or prune juice or cod liver oil ,rub it on the bottom of her feet or mineral oil on the bottom of her feet!

Jennifer - posted on 05/22/2010

Is your baby on Poly-vi-sol or any type of vitamin supplements? We bought Poly-vi-sol instead of Tri-vi-sol (as I didn't want to drive to our pharmacy) and the vitamin B in the supplement was making my son (born at 33 wks, 0 days) constipated. We stopped it and within a week he was regular. Also, have you tried eating dried apricots? They are a natural laxative and if you eat them, they will be passed through your breastmilk.. Just a couple of thoughts. Other than that, we also gave our son a couple of bites of apricot baby food everyday (during the clear out week) and that also helped (this was recommended by my son's neonatologist). Hope this maybe helps.. Good luck..

Brandy - posted on 05/22/2010

oh yeah, and i dont think youre supposed to give a baby food until theyre 4 months corrected age it can actually cause digestion problems, and your supposed to use rice cereal first in case of allergies.

Brandy - posted on 05/22/2010

i did it was horrible jenna went once a week until she was about 9 months old i took her to the ER at childrens and they said she was collicy but she was fine, i was so mad because nobody would help us, i tried belly massages, warm baths which is so hard with a newborn, so then i tried warm washcloths from the microwave on her tummy to try to ease the pain, i stimulated her with a thermometer and vaseline (dont do that unless the dr shows you how far to go) i tried pumping her legs, finally by the time she was 5 months i started giving her gas drops and baby white grape juice that help a little with the gas pain but not the constipation, then when she was 9 months i called the dr and asked about enimas and they said noway thats not safe on a preemie so i said screw it and i started to water down her formula and increased her juice even though they didnt want me to and guess what? after about a week she was regulated and then when i mentioned it to her dr i was told, as long as shes getting 24 oz of formula (because of her age) and shes gaining weight thats fine.