Thick mucous in stools of breastfed baby

[hasya]

Hello everyone,

I posted a thread about something similar before, but I have a 7 month old baby who just started rice and barley cereals. Much before I introduced solids (in July, in fact), I started noticing mucous in her stools. It isn't there in every stool, not even everyday, and it doesn't seem to be accompanied by any extra fussiness or gas or colic. She is working on a second tooth right now. The mucous is thick and yellow-translucent at times, very thin at times, but I considered food intolerances. I am currently on a no-dairy/soy/egg/almond diet (I am a lacto-vegetarian normally) and I eat a wide variety of beans and such. I ate peanuts a few days ago (about 3 days after I dropped dairy entirely), and the next day, there was a thick string of mucous in one diaper. It was back to thin strings after that, if that. Could this indicate a peanut allergy? I thought that peanut allergies are a lot worse. Or residual dairy? Or teething?

This no dairy thing is so hard, esp when combined with no soy. Instead, I am drinking nutritionally empty drinks like bottled Ca-fortified OJ.

I wonder if it is possible to test the mucous to find out where it originates from?

[Llyra]

Did baby have the normal newborn screenings? I'm just wondering if there's some underlying medical issue. How has baby's weight gain been?

Mucus for a short span of days or two weeks or so, can be the sign that baby is fighting off a GI virus. But mucus on a chronic basis can be something innocuous-- from lots of drooling, for instance-- or it can be a sign of malabsorption in the intestines. Malabsorption can have a number of causes. Allergy is one, or intolerances to certain proteins etc. It can also be a symptom of several metabolic or digestive disorders.

Do you have a health care professional you trust? Why not ask that person for advice? Or to request allergy testing for baby?

[eko_mom]

There are a lot of good and experienced folks on the Yahoo group called FoodLab.

[hasya]

Normal screenings as in the 21 day urine test and such? Yes, she had that. Her weight gain has been good, according to her pediatrician.

Thanks, ekomom, I'll check there.

[Llyra]

No, I mean the heel stick-- the metabolic screening for stuff like cystic fibrosis, PKU, etc. They test for different things in different places. Normal weight gain is very reassuring on that front, though.

[hasya]

Hmm, they did do a heel stick on her in the hospital. The details are hazy as I was all drugged out because of anti-nausea meds :-(. They gave just one dose of it but boy! I'll check with my husband or call the hospital.