Food/Nutrition Columnist
Tiny Tummies – What Goes In, What Comes Out, and What Happens In Between
By
Feb 21, 2010 - 7:16:00 AM

(HealthNewsDigest.com) - In the first few weeks of your baby’s life, the two ends of her body demand your full attention. Crying – she’s hungry. Cooing – he’s full. Fussy – soiled diaper. Cranky – gas, Crying – hungry again! The activity of your baby’s digestive tract sets the tone and pace of your entire day.

The gastrointestinal tract is a long, muscular tube that runs through the center of your baby’s body from the mouth (top opening) to the anus (bottom opening). A great deal of activity occurs on route. Breastmilk or formula is ingested (taken in), digested (broken down), and absorbed (moved out of the digestive tract and into the body), and wastes are excreted (moved out of the body and onto the diaper).
This process is continuous, as you well know, because you are caught up in the round the clock cycle of feeding, burping, changing, feeding, burping, changing and feeding again.

Newborns can digest the protein in human milk and formula, but they can only process a small amount at a time. This is one reason new babies need to be fed small amounts frequently. Babies can digest most of the fat in breast milk and slightly less of the fat in formula. Your baby can’t digest fat completely until 5 to 9 months old which is the time they begin eating solid food and expanding their variety.

Starch and sugar (carbohydrate) digestion begins in the mouth and is completed in the small intestine. The enzymes needed to break down carbs are at low levels in young infants. This is why most pediatricians and dietitians discourage new parents from introducing cereal too soon. Many new parents, desperate for sleep, think slipping a little cereal in the last bottle will make a baby sleep through the night. Introduced too early, this cereal is more likely to cause gas and a tummy ache than a full night’s sleep.

At birth, sucking is a reflex reaction. As the months pass, your baby will develop muscles in her mouth and gain control of the movement of her tongue. This sets the stage for chewing and swallowing solid foods. But, the enzyme system needed to break down and make use of food needs time to develop and mature. There is no need to introduce foods too early and there should be no rush to increase variety quickly. Go easy and let your baby’s body grow and develop. At birth a newborn’s stomach holds only an ounce or two, which is another reason babies need to be fed so often. By a year your baby’s stomach can hold 7 ounces. Now you can see why breakfast, lunch and dinner become part of the daily routine.

New parents are on air patrol, coping with those tiny bubbles that are generated by sucking. All babies experience spitting up, burping, and gas because those tiny bubbles get trapped in baby’s digestive tract. As your baby sucks, she simultaneously swallows air. The air bubbles sit above the milk in her stomach. When you lift her upright, after a feeding, the air shifts and rises through the milk, pushing some of the milk up and out of the baby’s mouth. The result is a wet burp. Most new parents spend the better part of their baby’s first months with a towel or cloth diaper draped over one shoulder.

Over one-third of all infants burp up a little milk after a feeding. Some leak and drool milk out of their mouth when you lay them flat. In both cases there is nothing to worry about and both problems will stop when the muscle between the esophagus and the stomach matures and forms a tighter seal.

All new parents are on BM watch. They monitor the number, amount and color of every bowel movement. Not only are newborn bowel movements frequent, but they come in every color and shape imaginable. These color changes are harmless. The color and consistency will change again when you begin solid foods. You’ll often see the remains of last night’s dinner in the morning diaper.

A breastfed baby will seldom be constipated, even though there may be days when he skips a bowel movement. On other days this same infant may have 3 to 4 dirty diapers. The stools of a breastfed baby are usually yellow and loose. Formula fed babies are greenish and thicker in consistency. If your baby is both breast and bottle fed, her stools will vary between the two. As long as your baby passes his stools without straining (a little pushing and a red face are normal) don’t be overly concerned about the color, shape or consistency.

The activities of these tiny tummies can be fascinating. Enjoy the adventure. Before you know it you’ll be chasing him around the house.

© NRH Nutrition Consultants, Inc.
Jo-Ann Heslin, MA, RD, CDN is a registered dietitian and the author of the nutrition counter series for Pocket Books with 12 current titles and sales in excess of 7.5 million books. The books are widely available at your local or on-line bookseller.
Current titles include:
The Calorie Counter, 5th Ed., 2010
The Ultimate Carbohydrate Counter, 3rd Ed., 2010
The Complete Food Counter, 3rd ed., 2009
The Fat Counter, 7th ed., 2009
The Healthy Wholefoods Counter, 2008
The Cholesterol Counter, 7th Ed., 2008
The Diabetes Carbohydrate and Calorie Counter, 3rd Ed., 2007
For more information on Jo-Ann and her books, go to The Nutrition Experts

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