Peeing and pooping of your baby

During the first week, you should keep track of how often your baby urinates or poops. If you change your baby while maternity care is not available, keep the diaper. The maternity care can then record this later in the maternity book. The maternity nurse keeps track of how often your baby poops or urinates.

URATES

In the first few days, a baby can pee urine crystals (urates). Urates are orange/red in color and visible in the diaper. This is normal. Sometimes people confuse urates with blood and become unnecessarily concerned.

MECONIUM

For the first few days, the baby's poo is dark green/black in color and sticky. We call that meconium. By putting some Vaseline on the buttocks, you can clean it more easily. Because of this dark poo it is sometimes difficult to see if the baby has urinated. You can see this with a special pee indicator strip on the outside. This discolors when the baby has urinated.

If a baby has not urinated or pooped within one to one and a half days after delivery, please contact us.