All the bloody poo

Well, here I am, 15 weeks pregnant with my 3rd child. I’ve been wanting to revive my blog for a long time so I figured what better time than now? So many topics around pregnancy are directly related to gut health and human microbiota and can be managed through food, supplements and a holistic approach to health. I learned so much during my last pregnancy and the 2 years since then, even in the last 9 weeks since I found out I was pregnant. Two of my favorite topics are food and motherhood, so I want to share them and the impact they’ve had on my life and on this pregnancy so far.

Tired, weary mama with 7 week old Zola

My journey with food sensitivities and intolerances has had one of the biggest impacts on my life. It started when my second daughter, Zola, was about 5 weeks old. As is somewhat common in infants, we suspected she was sensitive to the dairy I ate and passed along through breastmilk. One Friday morning, I was alarmed to find bright red bloody streaks in her poopy diaper and small rust-colored spit up stains on her swaddle and bassinet sheet. I immediately called the nurse and made the first appointment to take her in to see a pediatrician.

Thankfully, I had already planned to take Lana to a drop-off child care to play with friends that morning, because I spent the next several hours wringing my hands and holding back tears as the doctor tried to understand what was wrong with Zola. They told me that bright red blood in the stool and bloody spit up are both rare in infants, especially 5 week olds. The simple thing to rule out was an anal fissure, which can be caused by straining—fairly unlikely in an exclusively breastfeed infant. There was no visible fissure, and the spit up indicated something in the intestines. Worst case, it was an intestinal rupture or infection; best case, a strong reaction to something I ate (here it states that cow’s milk colitis is a common cause of bloody stools and occurs within the first 2 months of life).

After what felt like hours at the pediatrician’s office, I was told Zola likely had a reaction to milk protein (not lactose, the naturally occurring sugar in milk). There is no diagnostic test for milk protein sensitivity; the only thing to do is completely eliminate dairy from my diet. Many children who react to dairy protein will also react to soy protein, so to be safe, I should eliminate soy too. I was also instructed to immediately take her to Seattle Children’s Hospital if she vomited blood and to immediately call the doctor if she passed large quantities of blood in her stools. Small amounts of blood were expected as she cleared the reactive proteins from her system.

Holy alarm bells. Graciously, we had a relatively drama-free weekend and no emergency ensued. I spent most of it reading up on dairy allergies/intolerances (particularly appreciate kellymom.com's approach and information). Food intolerances often arise after mom eats a lot of a certain food, and indeed, I had just eaten a lot of cheese, ice cream and milk. I tried to keep my mama guilt at bay and see the silver lining. Maybe Zola’s strong reaction to my over-indulgence of dairy would help us identify the cause of her fussiness. Many people have a fussy or colicky baby, but never get the clarity I got.

Milk drunk babies are irresistible!

But this was only the beginning of the story. In the following months, Zola continued to have blood in her stools, despite my efforts to read every label and eliminate all foods that contained dairy and soy. Which is A LOT of packaged foods. Thankfully, I don’t eat many processed foods as it is, but as a very hungry, tired new mom, I was eating everything in sight. One thing that stood out to me from many websites was that foods on craves (especially after a bad day) are often the culprits. How cruel is that?!

Peanut butter was a go-to comfort food for me, but I had cut back on it after doing the Whole Life Challenge. One weekend I ate an abnormal amount of peanut butter, and boom: bloody stools the following few days. One weekend I craved chips, tortillas and a South African specialty my mother in law made, mielliepap, which is a corn meal porridge. Boom, blood the following Monday. One weekend I bought my favorite multigrain flax bread from Great Harvest, ate a few thick slices of that. Boom, blood.

I took Zola into the pediatrician every time, bloody poopy diaper in tow. All of these diapers had black blood, so it was clear that the blood was digested. Bright red blood is undigested, so it indicates that the the blood originated lower in the digestive tract; black blood means it came from higher up in the digestive tract and has been digested. They tested her poo and confirmed blood every time.

If you’re keeping track, I’d now eliminated dairy, soy, peanut butter, corn and gluten. I didn’t eat many of these foods anyway, because of their inflammatory nature (and, not surprisingly, all but corn are in the FDA’s list of top 8 allergenic foods), so I didn’t miss them terribly. But I felt TERRIBLE. I know I could’ve never predicted that my little girls would have such a sensitive tummy. But every time she had black poo, my heart broke.

I just want to protect you too, precious child

It doesn’t help that I’ve struggled with food issues for years. I've written about these struggles before and I talk about them fairly openly. I experience “disordered eating”—not an eating disorder necessarily, but an unhealthy relationship with food. I’ve gone through periods of severe restriction followed by compulsive overeating, and I struggle with emotional or stress eating. Many people do this, we often talk about “eating our emotions,” I’ve just never seemed to be able to break the vicious cycle. I will discuss in a later post what I’ve been doing lately to improve my relationship with food.

And so now, my “indulgence” was causing my little girls’ intestines to BLEED. I felt kind of embarrassed and a little bit ashamed. I felt similarly when I learned in my first pregnancy that I had gestational diabetes. My “guilty pleasures” had a direct negative impact on my tiny, innocent infant…who was drinking MY breastmilk because I believed it was the healthiest thing for her. I tried not to dwell on these details and did what any new mom in survival mode would do: I soldiered on, found substitutes when I could and passed on foods when I couldn’t. I complained a little, but not too much because I did appreciate how it was forcing me to be healthier. These restrictions weren’t easy, per se, but the work around required some fun creativity and collaboration, especially at dinner parties (remember when we got to have those?!) and I usually didn’t feel deprived.

Zola and I navigating a menu--now as those "high maintenance" diners that restaurants are surprisingly eager to accommodate!

Eventually my diligence paid off. I took a poo diaper to Zola’s 4 month check-up and it was NEGATIVE for blood! It seemed that I had finally cleared all the reactive proteins from my body and Zola had cleared them from hers. It takes 2 weeks for those proteins to fully work through each body, so after I eliminated those foods, it could be up to a full month before Zola was clean. But she finally was. Hooray! I cried tears of joy that day.

Little did I know, this saga still wasn’t over.

Next time, I’ll discuss Zola’s hidden food intolerance and explore some causes of food intolerances. In the meantime, tell me about your experience with food sensitivities/intolerances/allergies. Or your food issues—emotional eating, shame around food, etc. I want to be a safe space to hear your stories. Feel free to post in comments below or send me an email at microbemom1@gmail.com.