After becoming parents, we not only became scientists, but also poop supervisors, urging the baby to on time every day and observing the smoothness of the baby's.
If the baby can't pull out one day or the is very difficult, parents will urge the baby to eat more foods rich in dietary fiber, but sometimes they will find that eating is useless, and even the baby pulls worse.
For how to eat dietary fiber to help babies defecate, everyone is still confused, today we asked the nutritionist Zhou Li to talk in detail.
Eat a lot of dietary fiber,
Is your baby still constipated?
Recently I met a mom who came to consult:
Her baby is 16 months old, weighs 10 kg, eats vegetables and fruits every day, and drinks water.
There is a bowel movement every day, and the defecation time is relatively fixed, but it is very difficult to defecate recently, and the front is a dry and hard small grain, and after half a day, it can smoothly pull out the soft stool.
Looking at the child's reddened little face, the adults are very anxious!
I asked my mom to list the baby's food schedule for the past two days, and take one of the days as an example to see what the problem was.
Milk: 500 mL
Sweet potato soft rice: sweet potato 20 g, rice 40 g, water 150 mL
Albino shrimp: 50 g
Steamed striped fish: 50 g
Fried yam: 30 g of hollandaise beans, 30 g of yam
Lightly simmered broccoli: 100 g
Apple + orange: 100 g
Oil: 10 g
Water: Cup of straws approximately 30 mL each time, 2 to 3 times a day
For babies over one year old, the diet of this day is very balanced, meat, eggs and milk are available, and foods rich in dietary fiber such as sweet potatoes, yams, broccoli and so on are also well ingested.
But why is there still a situation of poop is hard, is dry and hard? The crux of the problem is the amount of water your baby drinks.
Many times, when we mention promoting bowel movements, the first thing that comes to mind is to eat more foods rich in dietary fiber.
However, the role of dietary fiber in promoting bowel movement is inseparable from the help of moisture, so if you want to solve the baby's defecation difficulties, it is not enough to eat more dietary fiber.
We may wish to learn more about the relationship between dietary fiber, water and poop, which is more conducive to helping the baby smoothly pull out a good piece of through dietary adjustment.
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Dietary fiber is how to put poop
Take away from our bodies?
Dietary fiber is part of the plant, its more special place is that it will not be digested and absorbed by the digestive tract after entering the body; more is to turn food residues into poop, and make the poop soft, promote intestinal peristalsis, and smoothly excrete poop.
Dietary fiber is divided into insoluble dietary fiber and soluble dietary fiber according to different solubility, and their responsibilities are also different.
Insoluble dietary fiber, which forms the skeleton of the poop
Insoluble dietary fiber is dietary fiber that cannot be dissolved in water. Like wheat bran, vegetables, and fruit skins are rich in insoluble dietary fiber.
Insoluble dietary fiber is difficult to break down, they will quickly pass through the intestine, and adsorb food residues in the intestine, thus forming a stool.
And continuous adsorption of residue, so that the volume and weight of the stool is larger and larger, promote intestinal peristalsis, accelerate the discharge of stool.
Soluble dietary fiber, which changes the characteristics of the stool
Soluble dietary fiber is dietary fiber that can be dissolved in water. For example, the β-dextran in oats and the pectin in fruit are soluble dietary fibers, and its role is to make the stool softer and larger.
Soluble dietary fiber has a strong water absorption capacity, and it can absorb 1.5 to 25 times its own weight.
It mainly obtains water from the food and intestines that are ingested together, so that the stool becomes soft and better excreted.
At the same time, the solubility and viscosity of soluble dietary fiber are better, it will be more easily decomposed by bacterial fermentation in the intestine, indirectly promoting the growth of flora and increasing the volume of feces, to promote the peristalsis of the large intestine.
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When the water intake is insufficient, soluble dietary fiber will not be able to absorb enough water, can only continue to absorb intestinal water; and insoluble dietary fiber is still making the poop team continue to grow, resulting in large stools and dry knots in the intestine.
At this time, the child will have a stomach discomfort and has been squirming, but the bowel movement is very difficult, just like the opening case.
Therefore, while consuming rich dietary fiber, don't forget to add enough water, under their joint action, in order to make the baby's stool smoother.
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Babies need to take it every day
How much dietary fiber and water?
How much dietary fiber your baby needs per day
We can know that the intake of sufficient amount of dietary fiber is conducive to stool and bowel movements, which is one of the important prerequisites for the baby's inconvenience and secretion.
So how much is appropriate to eat per day? According to the Recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics:
Babies under 2 years of age consume 5 g of dietary fiber per day.
Recommended intake for children over 2 years of age: age + 5 to 10 g of dietary fiber, up to a maximum of 25 g.
Note: There is not enough evidence that excessive dietary fiber intake improves your baby's constipation.
We only need to give the child enough to eat, the intake of excessive dietary fiber, will lead to the stomach emptying time longer, but may affect the baby's absorption of other minerals.
The following is a list of foods for babies with 5 g of dietary fiber per day, you can refer to it:
How much water your baby needs to rehydrate each day
Before adding complementary foods, if there are no special circumstances, children do not need to drink additional water. After the addition of complementary foods, the amount of water needs to be gradually increased.
Follow UpToDate's advice: Your baby's minimum daily fluid intake is weight-dependent, such as:
Infant 5 kg: approx. 500 mL per day
Children 10 kg: approx. 960 mL per day
Children 15 kg: approx. 1260 mL per day
Children 20 kg: approx. 1500 mL per day
The liquids mentioned here include the milk that the baby consumes, the soups in the food, and the drinking water.
In the case we mentioned at the beginning: a 16-month-old baby weighing 10 kg needed 960 mL of water per day.
We and the mother calculated in detail the baby's current water intake:
There is 500 mL of water in the milk
Food supplement in 150 mL of water
Baby's daily drinking water is 60 to 90 mL
These add up to the baby's daily water intake of 710 to 740 mL, which does not reach the minimum 960 mL of water intake at all, so it causes the baby to have difficulty defecating.
When the dietary fiber intake is too much, in the case of not affecting the amount of milk and complementary foods, it is generally recommended to increase the amount of water (50 ~ 200 mL) appropriately, so that it is more conducive to the smooth discharge of stool.
Detailed about the content of dietary fiber here, I hope that everyone's baby can happily pull out a good every day.
[1] Yang Yuexin and Ge Keyou, eds., Chinese Nutrition Science Encyclopedia (2nd Edition)[M].Beijing: People's Medical Publishing House, 2019, p253-255
[2]https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/abdominal/Pages/Constipation.aspx
[3] Institute of Nutrition and Health, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, edited by Yang Yuexin, Chinese Food Ingredient Table (Standard Edition, Volume 1, 6th Edition) [M].Beijing: Peking University Medical Press, 2019
[4]https://www.uptodate.com/contents/recent-onset-constipation-in-infants-and-children?search=Recent-onset%20constipation%20in%20infants%20and%20children&source=search_result&selectedTitle=1~150&usage_type=default&display_rank=1
Audit expert Liu Suiqian
The Australian Dietitians Association is a Certified Registered Dietitian
Registered Dietitian in China
Planner: Lan Lan
Typography: Lan Lan
Title image source: Figureworm Creative