title: The bowel habit of young children.
abstract: The bowel habit of 350 preschool children from a single general practice was studied. Eighty five per cent of 1 to 4 year olds eating a predominantly low fibre diet opened their bowels once or twice a day and 96% of the children fell within the range of three times a day to every other day. At all ages most children produced soft stools of about 25 ml volume. Mean intestinal transit time of 35 (10%) randomly selected children was 33 hours. There is a significant correlation between infrequency of bowel action, longer transit time, hard stools, and the passage of blood.
mesh_terms: D002675:Child, Preschool; D003672:Defecation; D004043:Dietary Fiber / Q000008:administration & dosage; D005243:Feces; D005260:Female; D005769:Gastrointestinal Motility; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009780:Occult Blood; D013997:Time Factors