Constipation is uncommon in infancy, particularly in breastfed babies, but it can happen. Breastfed babies tend to have fewer episodes of constipation and diarrhea than formula-fed babies because breast milk is easier than formula to digest.

In older children, constipation is common and accounts for about 3% of visits to pediatric outpatient clinics and up to 25% of visits to pediatric gastroenterologists.

A baby might be constipated if they are passing hard pebble-like stools or have a distended belly. As every baby poops on their own schedule, the frequency of bowel movements is not always an accurate indicator of constipation.

In this article, we examine the possible causes of constipation in breastfed babies. We also look at the symptoms of constipation in babies and the treatments and home remedies.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that babies exclusively have breast milk until 6 months after birth. During this time, they advise not giving any additional foods or fluids to the baby unless a doctor recommends it. After the first 6 months, parents or caregivers can then introduce solid foods to the baby's diet.

A parent or caregiver may notice changes in the baby's bowel habits and the color and consistency of their stools if they decide to switch to infant formula or when they begin introducing solid foods.

A 2018 study examined the bowel habits of 83,019 newborn babies in Japan. According to the authors, most instances of constipation coincided with the transition from breastfeeding to infant formula, regardless of whether the woman gave birth vaginally or by cesarean delivery.

A baby may develop harder stools and constipation after starting solid foods. Certain foods, such as rice cereal and dairy milk, may cause constipation in babies younger than 1 year.

Other possible causes of constipation in breastfed babies include:

A woman who is breastfeeding may wonder how her diet affects her breast milk and whether her choice of foods can influence the baby's digestive health.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), women do not need to avoid specific foods while breastfeeding.

However, babies may appear to avoid feeding after a woman eats a particular food. In this case, the woman may wish to refrain from eating that food for a while and reintroduce it later.

Women may also want to limit or avoid caffeine while breastfeeding because small amounts of caffeine pass from the woman to the baby through breast milk.

Experts suggest that most women who breastfeed can safely ingest 300500 milligrams of caffeine per day. Excessive amounts of coffee may lower the iron concentrations in breast milk, which may cause mild iron deficiency anemia in some babies.

Although most women do not need to restrict their diets while breastfeeding, they should aim to eat a nutritious and diverse diet.

Although changes in the frequency of a person's bowel movements may indicate constipation in older children and adults, this is not necessarily the case for babies.

Newborn babies may have multiple bowel movements each day. According to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, from 36 weeks of age onward, breastfed babies may have only one bowel movement per week because breast milk leaves minimal solid waste to pass through the digestive tract.

Breastfed babies older than 6 weeks can go several days to a week between bowel movements.

Babies often show signs of straining, such as crying or getting red in the face, while having a bowel movement. However, straining does not necessarily mean that a baby has constipation. Babies may take a while to learn how to have bowel movements.

Symptoms of constipation in breastfed babies may include:

Normal bowel habits vary from baby to baby. Parents and caregivers should monitor their baby's bowel habits and take note of any changes. Doing this may help them decide when they need to take the baby to a doctor.

It is possible to treat constipation in breastfed babies at home using various remedies. However, constipation in exclusively breastfed babies is so uncommon that parents and caregivers may wish to speak to a pediatrician before trying home remedies.

Dietary changes for a baby who is taking formula or foods other than breast milk may help relieve constipation. Breastfeeding women can also try eliminating foods that have an association with infant constipation, such as dairy, from their diet. However, changes to the woman's diet may not affect the baby's digestion.

Babies who eat solids may have difficulty digesting high fiber foods or dairy products if parents or caregivers introduce them too early.

High fiber foods may also help relieve constipation in babies who can tolerate most solid foods. These foods include:

Liquids help move stools through the digestive tract. Increasing a baby's fluid intake may also help relieve constipation.

Exercise can stimulate a baby's bowels and help them pass stools. However, babies who cannot walk or crawl will require a parent or caregiver to help them exercise.

Parents and caregivers can help relieve constipation by gently moving the baby's legs in a bicycling motion with the baby lying on their back.

Putting a baby on its stomach to squirm, reach, and play with toys can also stimulate a bowel movement.

Parents and caregivers can gently massage a baby's stomach to help try to relieve constipation.

Massage techniques to consider include:

A warm bath may help relax a baby's abdominal muscles, which might make stools pass through the digestive tract more easily.

Parents and caregivers should speak with a doctor or pediatrician if their baby:

A doctor can diagnose constipation in babies by reviewing their medical history and performing a physical exam. Rarely, a doctor may order additional laboratory tests, such as a stomach X-ray, to diagnose or rule out other conditions.

If home remedies and dietary changes do not relieve a baby's constipation, a doctor might prescribe a mild laxative or suppository.

Parents and caregivers should never give these treatments to a baby without speaking to a trained healthcare professional first.

Constipation is not a common occurrence in breastfed babies. It usually happens as a result of changing to formula or starting solid foods.

Having infrequent bowel movements is not always an indication that a baby is constipated. Constipated babies are likely to pass hard, pebble-like stools.

Home remedies may help relieve constipation in breastfed babies. If a parent or caregiver is concerned about their baby's bowel movements and accompanying symptoms, they should take them to see a doctor.

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Constipation in breastfeeding babies: Treatments and causes - Medical News Today

Gift giving is a big deal this time of year.

To find the perfect gift, Americans will spend about 15 hours shopping. Women will do about twice as much as men. And theyll shell out about $1 trillion on gifts.

Jay L. Zagorsky

While retailers relish the holiday shopping season as a time when consumers open their purses or wallets, for many consumers especially those who do not like shopping these days are filled with dread. They mark moments when shoppers clog malls, websites become overloaded and delivery trucks block streets. The entire process generates untold amounts of stress and anxiety.

One source of stress is just how much to spend on gifts. Spending too much can put you in financial distress. Spending too little may make you look cheap.

How do you decide whats the right amount to spend on gifts?

As an economist, I study holidays and gift giving because a large fraction of retail shopping is driven by seasonal events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Super Saturday also and more appropriately known as Panic Saturday which is the last Saturday before Christmas.

Dead weight loss

Gift giving is stressful because nobody wants to buy what they think is a perfect gift only to discover it is a dud.

The long lines of people returning items after the holidays seem evidence enough for that.

This has led some economists to argue theres a dead weight loss to Christmas presents that destroys as much as a third of their actual value. A 2018 study estimated Americans spend $13 billion a year on unwanted gifts.

Other economists, however, have resisted this Scrooge-like view of gift giving and point to evidence that a present can actually have more value to the recipient than the price the giver paid. In other words, a gift, even when technically unwanted, could have more value simply because someone else bought it for you.

Setting a budget

So if youre dead set on buying some gifts, how much should you budget for it?

Since gifting is a social act, it makes sense to consider how much other people typically spend.

There are a number of surveys run each year that ask people during the fall to estimate what they plan on spending for holiday gifts. The National Retail Federations annual survey of holiday spending estimates the typical American will spend $659 on gifts for family, friends and co-workers in 2019. On the high end, Gallup puts the average at $942, with more than a third of respondents expecting to spend over $1,000 on gifts.

But these figures arent that helpful for an individual since $659 means something different to someone making $40,000 a year versus $200,000.

Thats where the Consumer Expenditure Survey comes in. Its a large survey run by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that tracks the spending habits of 12,000 to 15,000 families each year. The government uses the survey to determine the cost of living and inflation rates for the typical family.

The survey follows gift giving very precisely. It has categories for common holiday presents like electronics, books and clothes, as well as gifts that typically arent associated with the season such as housing and transportation.

After removing these non-holiday gifts, the typical U.S. family spends about 1 percent of its annual take-home pay on gifts. So whatever you earn, you could multiply it by 1 percent to get a figure that is in the ballpark of what the average American spends but wont break the bank.

Making the holidays memorable

While calculating a gift budget is one way to take the stress out of how much to spend on gifts, my family has another: Only give gifts to children.

Adults get wrapped boxes filled with paper. After the real gifts are opened and the young children are safely moved out of the way, we crumple up the paper and throw it at each other in our annual paper fight.

That keeps the cost down while making the kids feel special. It also ensures the kids dont feel left out when their friends talk about the gifts they received. Other families follow their own methods for controlling expenses, such as secret Santa gifts or by focusing attention more on togetherness than on the stuff received.

Whether you have a paper fight or follow another family tradition, my main message is that it doesnt take very much money to make the winter holidays memorable.

Jay L. Zagorskymis a senior lecturer in Boston Universitys Questrom School of Business. The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.

Follow this link:
How to pick the 'right' amount to spend on holiday gifts according to an economist - Post Register

Gift giving is a big deal this time of year.

To find the perfect gift, Americans will spend about 15 hours shopping. Women will do about twice as much as men. And theyll shell out about $1 trillion on gifts.

While retailers relish the holiday shopping season as a time when consumers open their purses or wallets, for many consumers especially those who do not like shopping these days are filled with dread. They mark moments when shoppers clog malls, websites become overloaded and delivery trucks block streets. The entire process generates untold amounts of stress and anxiety.

One source of stress is just how much to spend on gifts. Spending too much can put you in financial distress. Spending too little may make you look cheap.

How do you decide whats the right amount to spend on gifts?

As an economist, I study holidays and gift giving because a large fraction of retail shopping is driven by seasonal events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Super Saturday also and more appropriately known as Panic Saturday which is the last Saturday before Christmas.

Gift giving is stressful because nobody wants to buy what they think is a perfect gift only to discover it is a dud.

The long lines of people returning items after the holidays seem evidence enough for that.

This has led some economists to argue theres a dead weight loss to Christmas presents that destroys as much as a third of their actual value. A 2018 study estimated Americans spend $13 billion a year on unwanted gifts.

Other economists, however, have resisted this Scrooge-like view of gift giving and point to evidence that a present can actually have more value to the recipient than the price the giver paid. In other words, a gift, even when technically unwanted, could have more value simply because someone else bought it for you.

So if youre dead set on buying some gifts, how much should you budget for it?

Since gifting is a social act, it makes sense to consider how much other people typically spend.

There are a number of surveys run each year that ask people during the fall to estimate what they plan on spending for holiday gifts. The National Retail Federations annual survey of holiday spending estimates the typical American will spend $659 on gifts for family, friends and co-workers in 2019. On the high end, Gallup puts the average at $942, with more than a third of respondents expecting to spend over $1,000 on gifts.

But these figures arent that helpful for an individual since $659 means something different to someone making $40,000 a year versus $200,000.

Thats where the Consumer Expenditure Survey comes in. Its a large survey run by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that tracks the spending habits of 12,000 to 15,000 families each year. The government uses the survey to determine the cost of living and inflation rates for the typical family.

The survey follows gift giving very precisely. It has categories for common holiday presents like electronics, books and clothes, as well as gifts that typically arent associated with the season such as housing and transportation.

After removing these non-holiday gifts, the typical U.S. family spends about 1% of its annual take-home pay on gifts. So whatever you earn, you could multiply it by 1% to get a figure that is in the ballpark of what the average American spends but wont break the bank.

Making the holidays memorable

While calculating a gift budget is one way to take the stress out of how much to spend on gifts, my family has another: Only give gifts to children.

Adults get wrapped boxes filled with paper. After the real gifts are opened and the young children are safely moved out of the way, we crumple up the paper and throw it at each other in our annual paper fight.

That keeps the cost down while making the kids feel special. It also ensures the kids dont feel left out when their friends talk about the gifts they received. Other families follow their own methods for controlling expenses, such as secret Santa gifts or by focusing attention more on togetherness than on the stuff received.

Whether you have a paper fight or follow another family tradition, it doesnt take very much money to make the winter holidays memorable.

Jay L. Zagorsky of Boston University contributed this story to The Conversation, an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.

Read the rest here:
What's the 'right' amount to spend on gifts? - The Philadelphia Tribune

Gift giving is a big deal this time of year.

To find the perfect gift, Americans will spend about 15 hours shopping. Women will do about twice as much as men. And theyll shell out about US$1 trillion on gifts.

While retailers relish the holiday shopping season as a time when consumers open their purses or wallets, for many consumers especially those who do not like shopping these days are filled with dread. They mark moments when shoppers clog malls, websites become overloaded and delivery trucks block streets. The entire process generates untold amounts of stress and anxiety.

One source of stress is just how much to spend on gifts. Spending too much can put you in financial distress. Spending too little may make you look cheap.

How do you decide whats the right amount to spend on gifts?

As an economist, I study holidays and gift giving because a large fraction of retail shopping is driven by seasonal events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Super Saturday also and more appropriately known as Panic Saturday which is the last Saturday before Christmas.

Dead weight loss

Gift giving is stressful because nobody wants to buy what they think is a perfect gift only to discover it is a dud.

The long lines of people returning items after the holidays seem evidence enough for that.

This has led some economists to argue theres a dead weight loss to Christmas presents that destroys as much as a third of their actual value. A 2018 study estimated Americans spend $13 billion a year on unwanted gifts.

Other economists, however, have resisted this Scrooge-like view of gift giving and point to evidence that a present can actually have more value to the recipient than the price the giver paid. In other words, a gift, even when technically unwanted, could have more value simply because someone else bought it for you.

Setting a budget

So if youre dead set on buying some gifts, how much should you budget for it?

Since gifting is a social act, it makes sense to consider how much other people typically spend.

There are a number of surveys run each year that ask people during the fall to estimate what they plan on spending for holiday gifts. The National Retail Federations annual survey of holiday spending estimates the typical American will spend $659 on gifts for family, friends and co-workers in 2019. On the high end, Gallup puts the average at $942, with more than a third of respondents expecting to spend over $1,000 on gifts.

But these figures arent that helpful for an individual since $659 means something different to someone making $40,000 a year versus $200,000.

Thats where the Consumer Expenditure Survey comes in. Its a large survey run by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that tracks the spending habits of 12,000 to 15,000 families each year. The government uses the survey to determine the cost of living and inflation rates for the typical family.

The survey follows gift giving very precisely. It has categories for common holiday presents like electronics, books and clothes, as well as gifts that typically arent associated with the season such as housing and transportation.

After removing these non-holiday gifts, the typical U.S. family spends about 1% of its annual take-home pay on gifts. So whatever you earn, you could multiply it by 1% to get a figure that is in the ballpark of what the average American spends but wont break the bank.

Making the holidays memorable

While calculating a gift budget is one way to take the stress out of how much to spend on gifts, my family has another: Only give gifts to children.

Adults get wrapped boxes filled with paper. After the real gifts are opened and the young children are safely moved out of the way, we crumple up the paper and throw it at each other in our annual paper fight.

That keeps the cost down while making the kids feel special. It also ensures the kids dont feel left out when their friends talk about the gifts they received. Other families follow their own methods for controlling expenses, such as secret Santa gifts or by focusing attention more on togetherness than on the stuff received.

Whether you have a paper fight or follow another family tradition, my main message is that it doesnt take very much money to make the winter holidays memorable.

[ Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversations newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on todays news, every day. ]

Jay L. Zagorsky, Senior Lecturer, Questrom School of Business, Boston University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters.

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Holiday Haze: Why You Should Make a Gift Game Plan - The National Interest Online

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Home and garden walls stained brown from borehole water are a common sight throughout much of rural South Africa. Today, the sustainable living trend has seen many urban homeowners sinking boreholes in an effort to live off the grid.

Unfortunately, while earth-coloured walls may add to the charm of the countryside, theres no living with walls the colour of mud in suburbia. South African soil is generally rich in iron and manganese while many of the trees we value so much are rich in tannins which contribute additional deep hues to the browning effect of minerals, says Adrian Tromp of Earthsmart Technologies. Tannins and minerals also turn pool water unpleasant shades.

Mr Tromps firm specialises in using a range of ozone-based and other chemical-free green technologies to remove iron, manganese and other contaminants from borehole water rendering it as clear and safe to drink as water from an untouched mountain spring.

Sinking wells, drilling boreholes and catching rainwater are all the way to go for any earth-conscious homeowner seeking the security of a reliable water supply, Mr Tromp says. However, to do things safely and properly, home-generated water simply must be treated, he adds. For Earthsmart Technologies, ozone is the preferred disinfectant.

Borehole water contaminants can cause serious health problems like iron overload which can lead to hemochromatosis that, in turn, can lead to liver, heart and pancreatic damage and diabetes. In addition, iron often carries bacteria that feed off the iron to survive. These organisms can be harmful when ingested. Symptoms like fatigue, weight loss and painful joints could all point to a need for the homeowner to check iron levels in borehole water.

Disinfection is key but chlorine doesnt have to be the go-to chemical for home borehole and harvested water disinfection, Mr Tromp explains.

Ozone is a naturally-occurring disinfectant well-suited for water treatment; approved as far back as 1999 as a disinfectant for Food Preparation by the American Food & Drug Administration and that country's Environmental Protection Agency. Ozone's strength is that it reverts back to oxygen rapidly after it has disinfected water.

Ozone is 2.5 times stronger than chlorine and works 3 000 times faster because it kills bacteria on contact. Chlorine's only real advantage, and it's one that appeals to pool owners, is that it ensures protection long after it is added to water. In drinking water, the consumer doesnt want to taste the residual chlorine which gives the long term protection.

Ozone Aquazone generators installed by Earthsmart Technologies oxidise iron, manganese, tannins, sulphidesand other contaminants common in South African water. After oxidation, there will be matter suspended in the water which is then filtered or settled out.Earthsmart Technologies water treatment processes use specialised glass media, iron removal media and carbon to filter this oxidised water.

Ian Wright, the manufacturer and supplier of Aquazone generators explains that home borehole users can now benefit from the same advanced ozone disinfection technologies used in large industrial and commercial water treatment plants worldwide. South African examples of treatment plants using ozone to purify water include the Roodeplaat, Midvaal, Temba, Rietvlei and Vaalkops Municipal Water Treatment providers. Ozone oxidises iron and manganese while disinfecting and removing other pollutants in water such as cryptosporidium - dangerous organic matter that chlorine cannot remove, says Mr Wright.

Ozone has been used for decades as a well-documented safe and natural purification process for water and more recently in over 300 US municipal water treatment plants. This same technology is now available to homeowners locally and thats pretty exciting for sustainable living, concludes Mr Wright.

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Brown Walls A Relic Of The Past With Green Solution - Creamer Media's Engineering News