Caffeine and symptoms of intolerance?

[@llli*2letterwords]

Hello all!

Background: Baby is 7.5 weeks old. He is a happy baby and is gaining well. We battled green poops early on but block feeding solved that issue.

Over the past 2 days or so, he has had at least one diaper daily with little specks of blood. The poop is mustard yellow but there is mucus (he is a very drooly baby though). He also has raw skin around his anus and redness between his butt cheeks.

The only change in my diet is that I have consumed much more caffeine over the past several days. It should be noted that I ingested NO caffeine during my pregnancy.

Can caffeine cause these symptoms? I have stopped caffeine again and will watch the rash (and will call doctor if it has not gotten even slightly better by Monday).

Thanks in advance!

[@llli*mtmama]

i would keep an eye on the poop myself. if you see specks occasionally i would not worry but if it happens consistently you can work to figure it out. my son had some blood, very very little specks, for a little then it went away.

how much were you consuming?

if you are ok eliminating caffeine go ahead, see what happens. if you want to ease it in and watch the poops you can do that.

[@llli*2letterwords]

Oh, of course. I keep a log of his diapers and will continue to monitor. So far it has been very little and obviously not in every diaper. I'm really just curious if an excess of caffeine could cause these symptoms as other foods, etc... do.

[@llli*mommal]

It's really tempting to take a correlation and turn it into causality, YKWIM? I wouldn't draw any conclusions based on one bad episode. Especially when the usual culprits for bloody poops are things like cow's milk proteins and soy.

That being said, it certainly won't hurt to take caffeine out of your diet.

[@llli*mtmama]

i will say that when i first saw the blood specks i thought about elimination and i was completely overwhelmed. i decided to just keep an eye on it and it was fine.

me, i wouldnt want to let go of my yummy coffee and i have personally not had issues with caffeine and i do drink a lot. good luck

ETA: realized that may have sounded like i would not do an elimination diet, not what i intended. i would eliminate anything necessary for my lo, i just know how difficult that can be and i didnt want you to think you needed to go down that road because of a little blood. now i am rambling, sorry! time for bed.

[@llli*2letterwords]

To mommal: I completely understand. Even though my diet has consisted of dairy, etc... all along; would symptoms of allergy just start showing up now?

To mtmama: I did not think that of your statement at all! His doctor did say that if it is only small amounts and not very frequent, that there could be lots of causes for it and to monitor it. That being said, I do think he has the allergy ring now and was just curious if caffeine could have the same effects as other dietary factors. I only mention caffeine because it was the one new thing in my diet as of the past couple of weeks.

If this doesn't clear up after removing caffeine again, I will begin with dairy elimination. He is in fine spirits (he's very smiley) but I hate seeing that redness on his butt!

[@llli*auderey]

my DS seemed to be incredibly sensitive to caffeine. even a cup of black tea in the morning had him up at night, 100% correlation, until after 9 months. but he never had blood in his stool. for what that's worth!

[@llli*mommal]

Allergy symptoms usually take some time to develop. Most people who are allergic to bees (just for example) don't have an anaphylactic reaction the first time they are stung.

You mentioned that you battled green poops early on, and that block feeding resolved the issue. One possible explanation for the bloody poops is irritation of the intestinal lining due to oversupply. I know you feel that the issue is resolved, but oversupply can creep back up on you.

[@llli*2letterwords]

To mommal: I am definitely considering the oversupply. Thank you so much for the input.

An update: We changed how we approached the rash and in less than 4 hours overnight, it was almost completely gone. And the last several poops have had no blood (I'm thinking it may have been from the raw skin around his anus).

Thanks for the input!

[@llli*mtmama]

glad to hear its clearing up. i love when a rash i have been "battling" finally breaks