6 Remedies For Constipation In Infants

You know your baby is constipated when you start noticing less frequent bowel movements. It cries and struggles while having a bowel motion. You may also notice bleeding from the anus, reduced appetite, abdominal pain, and hard, dry and pebble like stool.

Constipation in babies can be distressing both for the baby and the parents. Follow these simple home remedies to relieve your baby’s pain and discomfort during constipation. Before trying any of these home remedies it is advised to consult your paediatrician.

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Effective Home Remedies For Constipation In Infants

Warm Water Bath

As soon as you notice signs of your infant’s constipation give a warm water bath to your baby. It is not only calming and relaxing, it loosens up stomach and anus muscles and aids in easy pass out of stool.

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Exercise

Yes, exercise helps infants too. When your baby is constipated, doing these simple and gentle movements can bring a lot of ease to the struggling baby.

Lay your baby comfortably on his/her back. Hold his/ her feet and turn the legs gently in cycling motion. This causes stomach muscle movements and puts light pressure on the intestines which in turn will lead to easy stool movement.

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Juices

Prune juice diluted with water works wonder for few babies in relieving constipation. If your baby is 6 months or younger feed 1-2 table spoon of diluted prune juice. Babies older than 6 months can be given 4-5 table spoons of diluted prune juice.

Laxative properties present in prune helps in softening and loosening the stool. You can dilute with equal amount of breast milk or water depending on your baby’s reaction to the taste. If your infant rejects prune juice try giving orange juice, pear juice, apple juice or grape juice in the same way.

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Tummy Massage

This is also one of the very effective methods to ease baby constipation. Apply little oil on your finger tips and gently massage your baby’s tummy in circular motion. Start at the naval and go outward in clockwise direction.

This type of massaging eases the pressure on colon muscles and increases the movement of food through the intestines and helps in easy bowel movement. You can use olive oil for massaging. You can also apply Vaseline petroleum jelly outside the anus for easy gliding.

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Food

One of the main causes for constipation in infants is the introduction of solid foods in the diet. A baby’s intestines are not developed enough to break down the complex food.

So eliminate the ones contributing to the constipation and include the food which will help in softening the stool. Foods you have to strike off are bananas, rice cereal and potatoes. Include fiber rich foods like peaches, prunes, peas, spinach etc.

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Olive Oil

Another safe home remedy would be to use olive oil. Add a teaspoon of olive oil to your baby’s first bottle in the morning. It gives a lot of relief to the stomach and helps in easy bowel movement. If your baby has started having solid foods try to use olive oil in cooking.