When an infant at teething age has some symptoms, they may be attributed to teething but other possible causes must be ruled out first.

To identify the normal defecation patterns and the factors affecting these patterns in the first two years of life, a questionnaire was given to the parents of 1,021 children who were followed in a well-child clinic. The time of first meconium passage, presence of colic symptoms, frequency, color, and consistency of stools were recorded.Mann Whitney U, Wilcoxon, chi-square, and correlation tests were used in the statistical analyses. The median number of defecations per day was six in the first month of life. This decreased to once in the second month and almost all cases remained so until the end of the 24th month. At the second month of age, 39.3% of infants passed stools less than once a day. This pattern of rare defecation was seen until the end of 6 months, when supplemental foods were started. Stool frequency was higher in exclusively breast-fed infants (p = 0.0001). Infants who had colic symptoms in the first 2 months had less frequent defecation during the first 2 years of life (p = 0.0001). In addition to confirming the previously observed defecation patterns of 0-2-year-old infants, this study provides the relationship between colic symptoms and stool frequency, and showed that the second month of life was unique in the sense that the frequency of stooling decreased to half of the previous month and 39.3% of these infants defecated less than once a day.

No abstract

Traditions still play an important role in the timing of circumcision and by whom and why it is performed in Turkey. Changing times and educational levels do not seem to affect the traditional approach to circumcision.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of 'baby-friendly hospital initiative' (BFHI) on breast feeding. In the four consecutive months after BFHI in Gazi University Hospital (November 2002-February 2003), breast feeding status until the second year of life in 297 babies, born in the same hospital was compared with the values of 258 babies born before BFHI (November 2001-February 2002). The exclusive breast feeding rate in the first 6 months was higher in the babies born after BFHI. Cox regression analysis revealed that BFHI increases the duration of breast feeding 1.5 times. At the end of the second year, cumulative rate of breast feeding was higher in the group after-BFHI (p=0.0036). The rate of breast feeding was increased by BFHI implementation.