Doctor, I am breast-feeding my child and every time I feed him, he poops! How has the child developed diarrhea? I heard that breast-feeding is supposed to protect my child from diarrhea?

Relax! Infants have a strong [simple_tooltip content=’Every time the stomach fills, the colon empties’]gastrocolic reflex[/simple_tooltip]. Over a period of time, this reflex becomes mature and is no longer active. On the other hand, even if your baby has a bowel movement only once a week, he’s not constipated unless his stools are hard and dry.

So there is wide latitude in the consistency, frequency and nature of stools that a breast-fed baby will pass. Stool

consistency and color depends on the age of the infant and on what the child is being fed. In general, breast fed infants have lighter yellow and more liquid stools than formula foods and these in turn more than children who are on weaning foods.