Major Constipation in 13 mos old: please help figure this out!

[barnone]

My poor baby has been horribly constipated. She's had pooping issues since she was 6 days old. I did the TED and she was fine, but I haven't been able to pinpoint what it was. She was having thick, playdoh-type poop for the past few months. But two weeks ago, it changed to hard, formed/solid poop that is so big she cannot get it out. She pushes and pushes and then starts screaming because it hurts so much it's heartbreaking! She is mostly breastfed as I haven't been able to give her too many solids yet.

Here's what we are eating:
Baby- pears (puréed, freeze dried, juice, fresh), peas (fresh or freeze dried), cooked carrots, chicken (cooked in olive oil), avocado (though not that much since she doesn't like it). She was also eating oats (oatmeal and Os) and applesauce- these were the last two we added so I cut them out. We also cut out rice (brown rice, rice puffs, rice cakes, brown rice pasta). She got diaper rash from prunes.
Me- chicken, turkey, carrots, apples, rice (and rice products), potato, olive oil, sunflower oil, oats, raisins, bananas, lettuce, balsamic vinegar, avocado, cucumber, honey, maple syrup, mustard, dates. I also have eggs and peanuts, but only once maybe twice a week. Everything on my list I put on the ok list while doing the TED.

When I eat wheat or dairy, her first symptom is usually reflux. She used to spit up buckets. She had horrible acne as a newborn, cleared up on TED. She does have a bit of cradle cap now and a few small patches of eczema. My older DD has food sensitivities, too, and it takes weeks for a symptom to show. I'm not sure when the eczema started or what is causing it (sigh). But my main concern is her constipation.

Any thoughts? Do I add something to my diet or hers? Maybe probiotics? More greens for me? Do I take away something else? This is so frustrating we've also tried chiro and we're now doing tummy massage at every diaper change. Any suggestions/advice/info are greatly appreciated!! TIA

[sbgrace]

How old is she? Did the constipation just start after you added those last two to her diet? How long have they been out? Constipation can build on itself so you may be seeing after effects still there after removal of the problem food. The colon can get stretched out and it becomes a cycle. She may need a stool softener.

The carrots, and applesauce all can, food allergies/intolerances aside, bulk stool and contribute to constipation. It could be as simple as that. It might be that she got constipated from something that simple and started withholding to avoid pain (depending on her age). The stool gets bigger, pain is more, it's a bad cycle that often takes a softener unfortunately to break. A friend went through that with her daughter.

You know what I might do? Go to pears, keep the chicken/olive oil if she's been doing that a long time without issue, and breastfeeding. Can you do that? Pears are stool loosening and olive oil should help too. It might be enough. I might consider stopping oats and apples for you for now too in case it's a sensitization issue for her and those are problem foods now. But it may just be too much bulking type foods for her. When my son was little we had to be very careful about that. When you add back consider apple juice to see if apples are the problem themselves or it was just the constipation effect of apple sauce.

[mightymama1976]

Hi there,

You are already doing such a wonderful job, mama!

As a nutritional consultant (and a mama who's been there done that) I would highly advice to get your little girl and yourself if you breastfeed completely off all gluten and dairy for 8 full weeks. If you "blow" it and accidentally allow any gluten or dairy into the diet during those 8 weeks, start the 8 weeks over. So that means to pretty much eating cooked from scratched foods during those 8 weeks. Then re-introduce each food SEPARATELY into the diet and see if either one would cause the symptoms to come back. Most of the time it IS dairy or gluten which are considered to be specific to constipation problem (sometimes both). So if you start re-introduction with dairy, then do it for a month without re-introducing gluten (it takes time to bring the symptoms back). Then if dairy seem ok, them cut the dairy out again next month and do a month of re-introducing just gluten, and see if the symptoms come back.

Eggs do cause problems in many people so this is also something to try to eliminate for 6-8 weeks and re-introduce.

Also, as a mother of a child with rather strange allergy (my son is severely allergic to chicken, used to break up in severe eczema until I realized it was chicken and chicken eggs he was allergic to...he could still eat quail eggs though) I would highly advise you to try different meats, to "play with it" and see if it makes a difference. I'd do a month of just buffalo meat, then a month of hormones and antibiotics free (preferable grass-fed if you can afford it) beef, them a months of hormones and antibiotics free poultry. You really never know what the trigger is until you eliminate and re-introduce it (elimination and re-challenge).

Keep in mind, that expressions of "silent" allergies can change, the body may no longer express its displeasure with an allergen the way it used to before the elimination. So, for example, let's say a child may have had eczema that went away once dairy was out, then when dairy got re-introduced the eczema did not come back. However, the next month a child started having asthma. This might be just a different expression of the same root cause problem - dairy allergy. "Silent allergies" can also be expressed emotionally: tantrums, melt-downs, aggression, so watch for it too when you are re-introducing a potential allergen and it might take a few days for the expression to appear. So when re-introducing a potential allergen, watch for ANYTHING out of ordinary.

Hope this helps. 

Edited by mightymama1976 - 3/7/13 at 9:08am