# Any alternative treatments for Hirschsprung's Disease?



## KZKidsmama (Aug 27, 2005)

Hi all. Am new to this community and not sure that I am posting this to the right place. However, my 4 week old dd is looking more and more like she might have Hirschsprung's disease. She can't seem to poop, I exclusively BF and she goes maybe once a day if we're lucky. Sometimes she goes as long as 3 days with no BM. Doc says very unusual in newborn. We are scheduled for a barium enema/xray next week. Does anyone have any experience with this disease or with anything similar? Any other ideas of what could be causing this or alternative treatments. It looks like the treatment for Hirschsprung's is a very invasive surgery/bowel resection. I just can't fathom it right now. Especially with all my post partum hormones still surging. Any ideas/help/info/ encouragement would be great!!

Thanks.
Clea mama to Davis 01/18/03 and Aurora 7/31/05


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## Periwinkle (Feb 27, 2003)

I babysat a little girl with this once and she had a colostomy (and later, an iliostomy) - hers was much worse than your daughters, where she never even got her meconium poop... she couldn't poop at all.

I hope the tests show this is not the problem and is just a very extreme end of normal breastfeeding baby. A 4 week old is getting up there in terms of having a daily poop be normal, but what were her poops like in the first few days?

Any chance it could be your supply? How are the wet diaper counts? Does baby get good hindmilk or just foremilk "snacking"? How much is baby gaining?


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## KZKidsmama (Aug 27, 2005)

She had one big meconium poop and then nothing for 3 days. We ended up in the docs office where they gave her an enema to get things moving. After that, she was about every day, sometimes going up to 3 days with no poops. She is peeing regularly, no probs there, and she's gaining weight fine. She's a pound over her birth weight and was back to her birthweight within a week. Today we are now on our 5th day with no poop. Have tried everything we can think of. Thermometer, walking, bath, etc. She does have a tendency to snack when feeding. It may be somewhat related to that, however it's really hard to keep her awake, bc she spends so much time trying to poop that by the time she is interested in feeding she's so warn out, she just goes to sleep. Vicious circle. On our local tribe board one mother suggested cranial sacral therapy, which I may try next week.

Thanks for the input.
Ck


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## Periwinkle (Feb 27, 2003)

She sounds normal to me!







I think pooping frequency is highly variable, but the fact that she had a big meconium poop soon after birth and that at various points she has gone daily seem pretty good news! Hirschsprung's is a physiological bowel anomaly. Physiological problems don't appear one day and then go away the next, kwim? She would ALWAYS have problems pooping from birth. My guess is this is just how her body is designed and that you could evaluate your diet (she could have dairy or other food sensitivity?) and a possible foremilk/hindmilk imblanace as potential avenues to get her to poop more frequently. Good luck!!!


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## Quirky (Jun 18, 2002)

My dd (now 6 months) had a while where she would go a week or more without a poop. I eventually gave her a little baby glycerin suppository (well, more like a squeezy tube) and she had the world's biggest poop.







She seemed to be much more regular after that, but she still has times where she'll go for four or five days without pooping.

On my homebirth listserv one mom posted that when she started taking alfalfa capsules/drinking alfalfa tea again after her birth, her ds went from pooping every 5 days or so to pooping daily. It might be worth a try! Here's a recipe I adapted from Aviva Jill Romm:

I bought organic herbs in bulk through www.mountainroseherbs.com -
much cheaper and fresher than tea bags, capsules, or even the bulk
bins at health food stores.

50 grams red raspberry leaf
50 grams nettle
50 grams alfalfa
25 grams oatstraw
15 grams rosehips
15 grams red clover leaf
15 grams red clover flower
15 grams peppermint

Combine all in a large bowl, toss until well combined, then store in
ziplock bags in a dark cupboard away from heat and light. Steep 6-8
Tbsp in 2 quarts boiling water for 2 hours, strain, add honey or other
sweetener if desired, and refrigerate.

The easiest way I found to do this is with a bowl on the kitchen scale
using the tare function (i.e. zero it out after each addition). If you
don't have a scale, you can also do it in parts: i.e. 1 part
peppermint etc., 2 parts oatstraw, 4 parts RRL.


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## 3girls1boy (Nov 20, 2001)

If the doctor is concerned, I would probably go ahead and get things checked out.

I am just wondering though is the poop that mustardy/soupy consistency and when she does go, is it a huge amount that goes everywhere, like up her back and down her legs? Because if that is so it may be on the far side of normal.


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## KZKidsmama (Aug 27, 2005)

DD is scheduled today for the barium enema, not looking forward to it, but we should have some answers then. When she does go, it's the yellowy, watery, curdy breastfeeding poop and there's a LOT of it. We did do a glycerin suppository yesterday to get the mail moving and it worked. The poo seemed to be all the way down to the end of her colon, because I didn't insert the tube very far at all and it came out with poo on it and then she went right away. I will definately try the alfalfa tea recipe above. Thanks!! Got my fingers crossed for todays tests. Wish us luck.

Clea mama to Davis 01/18/03 and Aurora 7/31/05


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## Periwinkle (Feb 27, 2003)

Hoping for good news and please keep us posted.


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## crazydiamond (May 31, 2005)

A very good friend's son (who is now 18 mos) has/had Hirschsprung's. He never had any meconium poops or anything and started violently vomited his second day (cause everything was getting stopped up in his intestines). He was whisked away to the NICU and given and ostomy until he was big enough for surgery. He had two operations at 6 mos and 8 mos and has been fine every since.

If it truly is Hirschsprung's, I don't see there being any natural remedy. When there are no nerves, there are no nerves, and I don't see of a way to grow them back. In my friend's son's case, the only option was to removed the defective portion of instestines.

Now, for milder cases it may not be discovered for a while. The main symptoms are chronic constipation, bowel distention, and poor growth. If your doctor is worried about it, then I'd follow his advice and get it checked out. The pooping pattern may just be normal for your child, but it'll be good to rule out something more serious.


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## kater07 (Jan 6, 2002)

My DD only poops every 3 days. My DS has Hirschsprung's.

If you need help, information, whatever, I PMed you. It's scary, I know.

You can get infant glycerine suppositories at the pharmacy. The best thing to do is rule out everything you can and hope for the best. Ask for sedation when they do the colon biopsy. I was not informed that it was being done, and they were CRUEL to my DS. PLEASE make sure you are there and that they give some sort of sedation and let you BF IMMEDIATELY afterward.

Whatever you do, do not let them tell you that your breastmilk is the problem.

It sounds really normal to me to not poop every day.

Oh, and my DS pooped his meconium, he pooped very regularly, but couldn't get it ALL out each time, therefore becoming bloated then throwing up and very lethargic and unable to nurse or keep any food down, etc.


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## KZKidsmama (Aug 27, 2005)

Thanks everyone for all of your support. We have just completed our second round of contrast enemas, after having Hirschsprung's ruled out (thank god!!!) the radiologist at the U of M hospital was thinking that she had a colonic duplication. Extremely rare. Our doc wanted us to have a colonoscopy (sp?). Before we put her through that, we decided to get a second opinion at Children's. We saw a surgeon there that wanted another contrast study done first. Which we just completed this morning. The radiologist said that he saw nothing unusual. He wants to compare his stills to the stills from the U study, but he really thinks that he won't find anything unusual when comparing the 2. So, waiting for the final word from this radiologist/surgical team, but I think we're off the hook!!! Now we just need to figure out if there is anything we need to do about the not pooping, or just let her be.......??!! She's certainly been monkeyed with enough. And how to pay all these medical bills now .

Thanks again, everyone.

__________________________


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## Periwinkle (Feb 27, 2003)

Oh that is great!!! Hope the final tests come back looking good too!


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## its_me_mona (Feb 2, 2005)

I just wanted to tell you that when my babies hit about the 6 week mark that they stopped pooping everyday. In fact, my middle son who was exclusively breastfed would go about 10-12 days between poops and when he went, boy howdy! So in my experience it's not uncommon for even a newborn to not have a bowel movement all that often.

Of course, I suppose it's always a good idea to rule things out. But at the same time, there isn't always need for alarm.

I'd say that as long as she's gaining weight and having an adequate amount of wet diapers and doesn't seem to be struggling then you might want to leave things alone. Using "tools" to get babies and children to poop can be like playing with fire.

Best of luck & keep us posted.


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