Constipation, commonly known as dry stools, has taken up a higher rate in pediatrics as living standards have improved and diets have improved, but the vast majority of constipation in infants and children is functional. Why does constipation occur in children? This also needs to be analyzed from the causes of constipation. 1, improper food composition: such as food containing more protein, less carbohydrates, food in the intestinal fermentation process is weak, the stool is mostly alkaline, but also drier, easy to cause constipation. In addition, many children have the problem of partial diet, like to eat fish, meat, do not love to eat fruits, vegetables, due to the low content of fiber in the food, also easy to cause constipation. 2, the lack of good bowel habits: defecation by the innervation. When the rectum accumulates a certain amount of feces, the peripheral nerves of the intestinal wall is stimulated, sending signals to the central nervous system, and then the brain feedback information and defecation action. If parents do not pay attention to training children to defecate regularly, or do not allow children to defecate in a timely manner, over time, will make the intestinal wall peripheral nerves to reduce the sensitivity of fecal stimulation, feces stored in the rectum for a long time, water is absorbed and become dry and hard, of course, it is more difficult to discharge. 3, the influence of mental factors: some children are subject to sudden mental stimulation, such as shock, or living environment and habits change will also appear temporary constipation. 4, intestinal tube function is not normal: children lack of exercise or rickets, malnutrition, etc. can make the intestinal muscle relaxation, lack of driving force of feces. 5, disease caused by constipation: such as anal fissure, anal stenosis or congenital megacolon can cause constipation. Children often constipation, it will affect the child’s health, can also lead to anal fissure or hemorrhoids, and can also affect the child’s digestive function, so that appetite loss. If long-term constipation and loss of appetite, it will gradually cause malnutrition in children, affecting normal growth and development. Constipation will not only cause toxic substances to remain in the body for a long time, damaging the liver and kidneys, but also affect the growth and development of children, leading to obesity, fatty liver and other disorders. The most serious is the long-term constipation will affect the child’s intellectual development. If the child’s constipation is due to partiality and diet is too fine, due to long-term lack of vitamins and minerals in the diet, it is more likely to cause malnutrition, and long-term lack of crude fiber in the digestive system, intestinal peristalsis weakened, digestive function decreased, can cause children’s digestive disorders. Frequent constipation, children will feel bloated discomfort, but because they can not express their own discomfort, more can not attract the attention of parents, their attention is too much focused on the constipation discomfort, so will be indifferent to external things, the phenomenon of “dull head”. For parents, you should analyze the possible causes of your child’s constipation and go to the hospital in time to clarify the real cause of constipation in your child, and get the doctor’s guidance and treatment. Good ways to relieve constipation in infants and children In recent years, the number of children suffering from constipation is increasing. Most of the causes of constipation in children are due to unreasonable dietary structure, or usually drink less water, or not to develop the habit of defecation on time. Although constipation is not a major disease, but the harm is not small. Therefore, infant constipation should be lifted in a timely manner. Because the infant’s gastrointestinal tract neural regulation is not sound, gastrointestinal function is not well developed, if the drug laxative, easily lead to gastrointestinal dysfunction, diarrhea, etc.. Therefore, parents must pay attention to constipation in infants and young children. The following few tricks can keep your child away from constipation, parents may wish to try: 1, food therapy for infants and young children constipation first of all to find the cause, if breastfeeding, insufficient breast milk caused by constipation, often weight gain, crying after eating, etc.. For this constipation, as long as the amount of increased milk, the symptoms of constipation then relieved. Milk-fed babies are more prone to constipation, which is mostly due to excessive casein content in milk, thus making the stool dry and hard. This situation can reduce the amount of milk, increase the amount of sugar, that is, the amount of sugar in milk from the original 5-8% to 10-12%, and the appropriate increase in juice. Infants less than 3 to 4 months old can add some milk cakes to the milk. Because the carbohydrates in the milk cake fermented inside the intestinal tract, it can stimulate intestinal peristalsis and help laxative. For infants over 4 to 5 months old, you can add supplementary foods, preferably chopped spinach, cabbage, bok choy, capers, etc., into the rice porridge and cooked together to make a variety of delicious vegetable porridge for babies. Vegetables contain a lot of fiber and other food residues, can promote intestinal peristalsis, to achieve the purpose of laxative. In addition, supplementary food contains a large number of B vitamins, etc., can promote the recovery of intestinal muscle tone, which is very helpful for laxative. Infant constipation by the above dietary adjustment effect is still not good, you can give the baby drink honey water, that is, often take honey water or honey into the milk feeding, the effect is better. Can also eat some bananas, a short period of time that can play the role of laxative. 2, training defecation habits infants from 3 to 4 months onwards can be trained to defecate regularly. Because of the intestinal peristalsis accelerated after eating, often appear bowel movements, so it is generally advisable to choose to let the child defecate after eating, to establish the conditioned reflex of stool, can play a half-hearted effect. In addition, you can also massage, the palm of the adult hand down, flat on the baby’s umbilicus, according to clockwise direction gently push and knead. This can not only accelerate the baby’s intestinal peristalsis and thus promote bowel movements, and help digestion. 3, drug treatment of infant constipation by the above methods are still not effective, you can use the open plug laxative. The open plug mainly contains glycerin and sorbitol, which can stimulate the intestines to play a laxative effect. When using it, we should pay attention to the fact that after the injection of the corked milk into the anus, parents should use their hands to clamp both sides of the buttocks, so that the corked milk liquid in the intestines to retain for a while, and then let the child defecate, the effect is good, also available in the family.