Brown Mucus Spit Up

[Brigitte & mike]

He just spit up a small amount of dark brown mucus with a burp/cough. He has never had anything other than breastmilk straight from the tap. Should I contact the doctor? Has this ever happened to anyone else? He seems fine otherwise.

He's 4 months old tommorrow and I am tandem nursing my 18 month old as well. I do have a cold.

Help!

[clothdipemama]

My daughter did that once about a month ago. She's a little over 3 months now. We were shocked but didn't do anything but keep an eye on her afterwards. She's strictly breastfeed as well. The only thing I thought it could be was maybe her nose bleed a little and it went back done her nasal cavity and then she spit it up. I know that's kind of gross but you know what I mean sometimes when your nose bleeds you can taste blood? I know again that's gross . Again we didn't do anything and she didn't do it before or anytime after that one time!! I hope that helps!

[imamama3]

If it does happen again I would probably call the Doc, but if it's a one-time thing I wouldn't worry, just keep an eye on him for anything else unusual.

[Brigitte & mike]

Thanks, that does make me feel better. He is alseep and seems satisfied right now so I'm a little more relaxed, but it just shocked me to see it. It happened on DH and he said, "is this a funny color?"...yes, it was. My nipples aren't sore so I don't believe that it's blood from me. I squeezed my nipple and it looked like normal milk. I'll keep you posted if it happens again, but I'm hoping it doesn't.

Like I said, I have a cold and he has sneezed a couple of times so maybe his nose is irritated. He doesn't seem congested though. Ugh, I really hope it's nothing.

[La Mere D'Anna]

Sounds like something my daughter and I went through once. My daughter was about four months old and one day spit up and there was a teeny bit of red blood in it. I called the doctor. He said that it could have been that a lot of spitting up made her throat raw. It never happened after that. Thank goodness!
My advice is to watch it. If you have any other incidences of this, then go ahead and talk to a doctor. I'm sure it's nothing. It takes on average 17 weeks for the baby's esophagus to mature and then he/she will stop spitting up so often and will therefore have less problems.

[amybabya]

I bet he is just stuffy and it is running down his throat. If you can hear/see anything in his nose, try to use some saline mist and suck it out with the booger sucker thing. The saline will help if it is irritated and dry too.

[Lexi]

My daughter does this sometimes too (she's not breastfed but it still happens). We figured out it was because her nose was getting dry and bleeding during the night. The frequency lessened greatly with a humidifier in her bedroom.