Baby Center Update

Dear Baby Center,

I was pleased to see your update in my inbox today.  Two topics especially caught my eye.

1) Everything you need to know about baby poop.  Only as a mother can you not shy away from 10 different photos of dirty diapers.  Your information was accurate and well presented. I only have two comments. First, it looked as though you may have thrown in a cloth diaper photo, but the image was cropped too closely to tell (enough said).  Second, you mentioned that your baby can have solid pieces of food in their poop or constipation when they are first introduced to solid foods. You give several explainations for why this happens, but you do not list early introduction of solids as one. I personally did not begin solids with W until he was closer to 7 months and even at 11 months he does not take in the quantity of solids most babies his age do.  And yet, even with small quantities of food going in, the food was still coming out mostly undigested until about a month ago.  I took that as a sign, not that he was swallowing without chewing or eating too fast as you suggest, but that his body was not yet ready to process solid foods.  Now that his system is mature enough to process solids he no longer has pieces of food in his poop and is overall less gassy. My lesson? With baby number 2 I will not introduce solids until my baby has at least one tooth (W did not get his first until after 8 months) and I will again follow a slow introduction allowing the intestines plenty of time to develop.

2) Fewer behavioral problems for breastfed babies.  Although I would be interested to know if this study evaluate babies who were breastfed longer than "...at least 4 months..." I was overall happy with the presentation of the article. I will be looking up the research myself to read it in more detail.  I would have to agree with the potential causes of fewer behavioral problems: the presence of certain fat and amino chains in breast milk and greater mother-baby bonding.  I also appreciated the small comment on mothers who choose to breastfeed being supported (although you did not say supported by whom).    Congrats, Baby Center - sometimes it is clear that you are trying to fight against the reign of the massive formula companies.