A very sticky (and green) question

[Acacia]

Hi Murph,

Just thought I'd pop in and share our experience off this. I had a really forceful letdown for the first few months and quite bad oversupply, so my DD was often getting green mucousy poos as well as bad wind/colic type symptoms.

It did go away on it's own - both as DD got bigger and more able to digest large amounts of milk better, as well as my letdown and supply eventually settling down (after 4-5 months).

One thing you can try and do if you find it is happening on a given day is to keep offering the same breast at feeds for a while - this might allow your DD to take in more fattier milk that comes later in a feed - BM becomes higher in fat content as a baby gets closer to "emptying" the breast. So if you keep offering the same breast first for a while (I used to offer the same breast first for up to 3-4 hours at times) then your DD will be getting fattier milk. This fat can then help slow the passage of milk through the digestive system, allowing the lactose to be broken down more/better before it is eliminated. The more lactose that is able to be broken down the less green poos/wind she may experience.

This didn't always work for us though - sometimes when DD had a really big feed, she would digest and eliminate it quickly and still end up with green poos/bad wind even when she'd had lots of fattier milk - I was told that when babies are young, the larger the quantity of milk taken the quicker it is moved through their digestive system, fullstop.

Don't worry about the curds in her poo either - these are fairly typical at her age.

Sounds like you are doing all the things that a good to help with forceful letdown, so keep doing those as they can make a good difference too.

One thing to remember is that green poos on their own are nothing to worry about in a breastfed baby- it's not abnormal and is only a symptom of the way your baby is digesting their feed. If she's not overly windy or distressed with the green poo and has lots of good weight gains then I wouldn't worry about it too much - it will get better in time, on it's own, and may even come and go which is normal too If she is struggling with wind and is uncomfortable, then try the one-sided feeding and see how you go. Wind drops might be worth a shot too, but TBH I found that they didn't help DD with her "rear end" wind at all - only to help get her burps up, which she could do anyway when given enough time to burp.



HTH, and hope things settle a little more with your DD - they will in time