brown spit up

[merino]

My son is 5 months old and drinks only breast milk. I work full time, so during the day he has bottles of EBM with the babysitter. Yesterday after I brought him home, he spit up (not unusual for him), and it was a tan color. In the past his spit up has always been whitish or yellowish- obviously partially digested BM. I had my husband call the babysitter to see if she had given ds anything else to eat, and she assured him that she only gave him BM, and that it was normal for his spit up to look different as his stomach matures. Can any of you moms confirm this? Ds isn't acting sick or uncomfortable, but it seems strange to me that his spit up looks so different. Can you tell I'm a first time mom?

[stafl]

Don't take the babysitter's word for it, call your pediatrician! Sounds to me like the babysitter gave him milk or formula. My oldest had to be supplemented with formula, and has an allergy to cow milk, and her vomit would be brownish before I switched to soy. Doc said it was normal, but I think it was blood in it. My youngest has never had any cow milk or formula, and when she spit up it was always white.

[christeenybeany]

If he has a cold, maybe the drainage turned it brown? I want to say I've seen brown spit up before, but I can't remember for sure.

[kimmysue2]

Always check with a Dr.

But gastric juice made to digest foods is a brown. My mother had a tube from her stomach out her nose draining and it was brown and she wasn't allowed to eat any food.

[USAmma]

Not to doubt anyone else's word, but my dd has a tube and she has never had brown anything in her stomach. I check her stomach contents by pulling it into a clear syringe all the time and it's just the normal curds and water stuff. When she's sick I get nasal discharge that runs down the back of her throat and she swallows it. Sorry that's gross, but maybe your baby has a cold and it's nasal discharge. If the whole thing is brown in color, call the ped.

Brown could signify bleeding from an ulcer or food allergies. Does your baby have any signs of silent reflux or allergies?

Darshani

[EviesMom]

My baby had brownish spit up once at about 3 months old. I wasn't working then, and she'd had nothing but bm. I figured that she had a bit of mucus running down her throat since she'd been congested, and it only happened once or twice over a couple of days, so I didn't worry about it.

I wonder too about the cows milk possibility; *I* had been eating more dairy around then (on summer vacation near really heavenly ice cream parlor), so she might have gotten more cows milk proteins through my bm.

If you have a ped you trust, though, I'd call and ask. You'll feel better.

[plantmommy]

Throwing another idea out here... does the sitter have crayons or markers or clay or anything like that around?

Not spit-up, but my older ds once had bright blue poop, which scared the heck out of me until I found the marker he'd been sucking on...

[TerriKay]

My son who is also bf, has had brown spit up a couple times too. It totally freaked me out the first time I saw it. My sister is my babysitter while I am at work, and I KNOW that she wouldn't have feed him anything else. I am guessing that it was something I ate. (like Eviesmom) I try to stay clear of dairy as much as possible because it causes more spitting up, but it is very possible that I had more than I should have just before that.

Call your dr, just to easy your mind, but my ds is healthy and happy and I'm sure yours will be too.