Your Baby’s Poop Can Tell You a Lot About What’s Going on Inside Their Body

By Jayme Kennedy, Mommyish

Look, no one likes to change a poop diaper. They’re gross on newborns when it’s all sticky. Gross on babies when solids are introduced. SUPER gross on toddlers when you have to actually look through the poop to find that damn Lego they swallowed. But they’re a part of parenthood, and you will change more dirty diapers then you ever imagined. As it turns out, the baby poop you’ve been squinting your eyes against may unlock the mystery of what’s happening in your baby’s tummy. New research suggests that gut health is in decline in babies, for a number of alarming reasons.

We recently brought you news of a study linking c-section rates to childhood obesity. This new research suggest they may also be contributing to a decline in gut health in babies. And baby poop holds the answers.
Bethany Henrick of the University of Nebraska and Evolve BioSystems Inc. issued a report that summarizes research previously done on baby poop. What they found is alarming. The pH level in baby feces has been steadily rising since the 1920s. The pH is the measure of how acidic or alkaline something is. Acidity is an indicator of how much “good” bacteria is present in the gut. To establish their findings, the team analyzed baby poop going back to 1926.

Good gut bacteria is important for long-term health and development.
In the study, Henrick and her team noted that “

he profound change in the gut environment, as measured by fecal pH, present a compelling explanation for the increased incidence of allergic and autoimmune diseases observed in resource-rich nations.”... Read more on Mommyish