Bowel Trouble

Does your child have problems going number two? We divulge tips and advice on how to get things moving along.

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Tummy woes don’t discriminate by age. Constipation, in particular, is a pertinent problem which affects up to 30 percent of young children and accounts for one in 10 visits to the paediatrician. Often deemed a passing nuisance that afflicts adults, constipation is as much a problem for children, disrupting their day-to-day lives and in some serious cases, even sending them to the emergency room.

As a parent, you may have your kid coming to you one day and complaining, “Mummy, it is painful when I poop”. Regardless of whether your child is healthy or not, most of them will experience constipation at some point. But when it develops into chronic constipation, it then becomes a frustrating medical problem parents have to deal with. We get to the bottom (no pun intended) of this widespread yet commonly misunderstood condition by equipping you with all you need to know to help your child come up tops in the battle of the bowel.

Lifting The Lid On Constipation

The notion of what constipation is can be a hazy one, with many conveniently lumping any below the-belt discomfort which does not feel normal under this term. This can range from a reduced amount of stool or having stool that is harder than usual, to the mere sensation of having unfinished business. Generally, a child is considered to have constipation when he or she has less than three bowel movements in a week and/or has difficulty in passing stool, which is usually accompanied by strain and pain during bowel evacuation.