Patient's question:
Doctor, hello! My child is now 2 months and 20 days old, exclusively breastfed, weighing 11 pounds, and measuring 56 cm in height. The current issue is that the child has a bowel movement on average every 5 days, and the stool is not dry. Is this normal?Doctor's answer:
If it hasn't been a bowel movement for several days, it is usually constipation in infants. Constipation in infants generally refers to a decrease in the frequency of bowel movements, or even the absence of a bowel movement for 2 to 3 days or more. However, when determining whether a child is constipated, the consistency of the stool is more important than the frequency. If the stool is soft and free of hard lumps, even once every 4 to 5 days is considered normal, commonly seen in breastfed infants around 2 to 3 months old. Sometimes, the bowel movement frequency may be normal, but the stool is dry and hard, difficult to pass, with small amounts each time, and appears as granules, which then constitutes constipation.