Gas and colic and fussiness do NOT mean you are doing something wrong as a parent. But they can make you desperate and exhausted. Some parents swear by gripe water. Others feel it doesn’t do much. Here’s the data.

Typically, babies with constipation present with harder, more pebble-like poop, or sometimes even blood in the stool. Contrary to popular belief, frequency of stooling is not how we define constipation. Newborn babies can poop as frequently as 8-10 times per day or as infrequently as once every 8-14 days. Both can be normal as long as poop consistency is normal.

Newborn babies have immature GI systems which are naive when it comes to digestion. As they start to feed, there is an adjustment process, and gas is a normal byproduct of that process. Gas is a result of an imbalance between the air that goes into the system and the air that comes out of the system.