Answer: Not necessary.

Like other decisions, when facing the problem of exhaust operation, you can also think about what problem you want to solve by doing this, is it useful, and are there any disadvantages?

The reason why I ask this question is that some parents may think that their children have flatulence, which causes them to cry or sleep poorly, or they may feel uncomfortable.

However, “flatulence” is not a formal disease diagnosis in medicine, because there is gas in the human digestive tract, and these gases will be excreted by themselves just like stool. If there are problems such as intestinal obstruction or enteritis, it may cause intestinal obstruction. Relatively large amounts of gas can cause abdominal distension, so it can be said that “flatulence” and “abdominal distension” are both symptoms.

When gas or stool in the small intestine or colon enters the rectum, the nerves in the rectal wall sense the pressure and transmit the signal to the brain. The brain controls the abdominal muscles and anal sphincter to force the stomach and relax the anus, and the gas or stool passes out of the anus. Expelled.

If there is stool or other things that have not been discharged in the intestines, and gradually accumulate, the pressure in the intestines will become greater and greater. When it reaches a certain level, the force of expulsion from the anus will become stronger. If the pressure is too high and cannot be expelled, then It is necessary to consider pathological problems of the intestine or anus, such as congenital intestinal stenosis, anal stenosis or megacolon.

Could it be that the child is too young and cannot defecate or pass gas on his own, making himself uncomfortable? This is theoretically possible.

Before defecation, the child’s face will turn red, he will hold his fists, cry, kick his feet, struggle for a long time, and then calm down after passing stool. This is indeed very common. Medically, it is called Infant Dyschezia.

The reason for this phenomenon is not yet clear, but doctors speculate that the baby has not yet learned to coordinate the contraction of the abdominal muscles and the relaxation of the anus. On the one hand, it is uncomfortable when the rectum is stimulated, and on the other hand, it does not relax the pelvic floor muscles. , unable to pass stool, so irritable and crying.

According to Rome Criteria IV, the following conditions need to be met to diagnose this problem:

Children under 9 months old cry and struggle for at least 10 minutes before passing soft stools

Other health problems ruled out

Babies’ defecation difficulties usually appear within the first month after birth. Most of them will get better on their own after 3-4 weeks, and a few will last for more than half a year.

In this case, the child seems to be in pain, but it will not cause any harm to the child and will disappear on its own. We can understand that it takes some time for the child to learn how to defecate. What we can do is give the child some time and wait for him to recover. .

Human intervention, including anal stimulation, is actually unnecessary, because it may cause children to develop the habit of not defecating without stimulation [1], which is not conducive to their ability to master this basic skill.

As for exhaust exercises such as rubbing the belly, firstly, it may not actually lead to defecation, because only gas or stool has been stored in the intestines at the anal opening, and rubbing the belly and applying pressure can help expel it. Gas in the intestinal tract at a higher position, such as the small intestine or the large intestine far away from the anus, is difficult to expel because the intestines are naturally distributed in the stomach and the gas is flowing.

We used to perform abdominal surgeries on children, and when the intestinal distension affected the operation, sometimes it was difficult to expel the gas by pinching the intestines, not to mention the random pressure of the intestines through the belly. If not, just push the gas upwards.

Second, exhaust exercises may cause the child to vomit milk. Infant children are prone to vomiting milk because the muscles at the gastroesophageal junction are relatively weak. Children are already prone to vomiting milk when they lie down. Rubbing the belly to pressurize the stomach will make it even more difficult. Vomiting is easy.

Therefore, the only thing that can be discharged by so-called exhaust exercises may be the air that is about to be discharged from the anus. More often, the gas and stool will run up and down in the intestines, and the child may even vomit milk. , so it makes no sense.

For problems such as “flatulence and difficulty in defecation”, after we have ruled out the pathological problems mentioned above, what we can do is wait for the child to learn to defecate and defecate on his own, which does not take too long.

If you don’t expect to expel gas, just gently touch the child’s belly with your hands as a way of parent-child communication, that’s fine.