Breast Refusal Due to Maternal Diet

Aged five months, baby ‘Krystal’ had changed dramatically from the peaceful breastfeeder she had been up until about eight weeks old.

Things had become so bad that her mother ‘Angie’ was seriously thinking she’d have to stop trying to breastfeed. Angie said that each daytime feed was a battle, with Krystal fussing, complaining, crying, pushing away from the breast and ‘generally acting as if I’m trying to poison her!’

‘And yet,’ Angie explained, ‘if I’m not trying to breastfeed her, she smiles and is her usual, happy self! And she’ll happily drink my milk from a bottle. The only time she’ll breastfeed normally now is through the night. I just don’t understand it at all!’

Pictured above, Krystal performed just as badly as her mother described, not even wanting to go near the breast, turning her head away, screwing her lips and eyes shut, pushing away from her mother and complaining loudly. Nothing was going to induce her to breastfeed. Then she happily drank a bottle of her mother’s expressed milk. It was all pretty devastating for Angie!

Krystal had two or three rather gassy, runny mustard yellow bowel motions every day. Angie’s impression was that these were normal for a breastfed baby. She also thought that Krystal’s hiccupping several times a day was normal. Actually, beyond six weeks of age in a fully breastfed term baby it is normal to see no more than one mustard yellow bowel motion, and it should be the consistency of toothpaste. Hiccups continue as long as bowel motions are abnormal, and appear to be linked to lower gut disturbance.

After a discussion about the likely connection between Angie’s diet, Krystal’s bowel motions and feeding behaviour, Angie was more than ready to try some changes to her diet to fix the problems.

Five days later, Angie was thrilled to see Krystal breastfeeding through the day again, albeit with a bit of wriggling and fussing which steadily subsided as time went on.