• Original Articles By Dr. Lavin Featuring Expert Advice & Information about Pediatric Health Issues that you Care the Most About

    Brown, Yellow, Green are OK – Red, Black, and White are NOT – The Color Tour of Normal Stools

    By Dr. Arthur Lavin

    We are often asked what are normal colors of stool, particularly for babies?

    This is an answer that is short and colorful.

    The color of our stool, all our stools, all our lives, is made by lively colors called bile pigments.  These pigments, in turn, ultimately derive from the beautiful red of hemoglobin.  When a red blood cell gets old and ready to be retired, the hemoglobin in it is metabolized to the gorgeous chemical biliverdin, the light blue of robin’s eggs.  In all humans the biliverdin is turned into bilirubin, a very bright yellow pigment.  Once we produce bilirubin, it is excreted via the liver into the gut, where it leaves the body in our stool.

    If the bright yellow bilirubin makes it into our stool and out of our body before bacteria in our colon get a hold of it, our poop will be bright yellow.  That’s just what we see when newborns who are breast fed pass stool quickly through our system.

    If any biliverdin gets through the process, and the pigments don’t get decayed in the colon, the bright yellow turns bright green, and we see this in newborns all the time, too.

    If the stool sits in our colon long enough for the bacteria there to metabolize the bilirubin and/or biliverdin, the bright green and yellow turn brown, the color of most older children and all of our poop.

    So that’s why green, yellow, and brown are fine.

    If, however, something goes wrong in the liver, and no pigments get through, the stool will be white, an extremely rare thing to see, a truly all white stool.  But if we see that we wonder about the liver.

    And, if there is blood in the gut, and it comes from high up like the stomach the blood will turn black and the stool will be black.  If the bleeding is closer to the end, the rectum, it will be red.

    And that’s why red and black are bad, they mean bleeding is happening.

    And, that’s why white is bad, it means there is something wrong in the liver drainage system.

    BOTTOM LINES

    1. Babies often have yellow or green stool, that’s very, very normal.
    2. Older kids and we usually have brown stool, that’s normal of course, too.
    3. White stool is very rare and not normal.
    4. Red or black stool is a sign of bleeding and not normal.

    Here is to the yellow, green, and browns of the world in our poop!

    To your health,

    Dr. Arthur Lavin

    No comments yet.

    Leave a Reply