Alleviating Constipation in Toddlers

Being a first-time parent in and of itself poses all sorts of challenges. Learning what each cry means, establishing a bedtime routine, childproofing...the list goes on and on. But there is one aspect of parenting over which--no matter how prepared you think you are--you have absolutely no control: Constipation. More specifically Functional Fecal Retention. This is not a pleasant topic, but I have been fighting this phenomenon with my daughter and feel that it needs to be addressed. She just turned two and I thought that we had gotten past the constipation that had plagued us at about 18 months. She had stopped crying and straining so hard that she vomited and she had been having regular bowel movements for months. Then about a week ago, we noticed that she was standing, straight as an arrow, trying to hold it in. I am in no way qualified as a doctor to give advice to treat this, I am simply telling you our story in the hope that if your child is having this problem, you might discover a new option that you can try-or at the very least discuss with your pediatrician.

Functional Fecal Retention, from what I have gathered in marathon internet searches on constipation in toddlers, is when the child has a large and/or painful bowel movement once and assumes that every one after is going to be the same. This breeds a fear into the child and from then on, every time the child feels the need to have a bowel movement, they forcibly hold in the BM. Each time the child succeeds in holding back a BM, the colon stretches to accommodate. It goes without saying that the longer this goes on, the harder it is to eliminate the bowel. If you have ever had a child with this predisposition, you know that it is not only painful for the child; it is agonizing for the parent. I have cried many times right alongside my daughter, waiting for her to pass mammoth BMs that in no way should have been able to pass from that tiny bum. I liken it to childbirth. Really.