Okay, so I asked around to find out when a newborn begins pooping. Peeing happens almost immediately. Pooping is basically that sticky tar like meconium stuff. My son hadn’t pooped for a full 24 hours after his birth, and that is considered fine. Most babies I asked about pooped some time during the second day for the first time. One had pooped almost immediately after birth, but apparently, he had also pooped inside mom before birth, so…..
The nurses in the maternity home said that the newborn should have pooped at least once before he will be cleared for discharge. Apparently this is to ensure that all the machinery inside is working how it should.
I waited impatiently for that first poop for a day and a half, and spent the next couple of days wishing I hadn’t. you see, that black-green poop is rather strange. its sticky, stains stuff, and doesn’t smell like poop at all. For my son, once he began passing meconium on the second day (third if we go by date, since he was born at 11pm), he kept passing it if he so much as looked at my breast. Cleaning it was rather yucky. Luckily we were done with the yucky stuff and on mostly normal poop by the time we headed off home, so it was good.
Unfortunately, he passed the yucky stuff easily, but started straining in a manner that looked rather painful once we began with the yellow stuff.