13 month old had to get an X-ray. I googled. Now upset.

[Worrywart84]

So my 13 month old daughter has been straining to poop for a couple days and she was in serious pain this morning—nothing we did worked—warm baths, fruits, veggies, water etc.

She was red faced and clearly not happy and everytime I would check her diaper or wipe her I would see a little bit of blood so I FREAKED. We called the pediatrician and he advised a pediatric enema. We failed miserably and attempting to administer this at home and it didn’t work so we called back and he said we needed to take her to the ER.

So of course I’m spiraling anyways because I am worried about something more sinister than constipation and also hate to take her to the germ filled cesspool that is the ER, but I had no choice.

They examined her and saw a fissure and said that’s likely why I’m seeing some spotting but they advised we do an x ray to make sure there was no obstructions or perforations and to see where and how much poop we are dealing with. I asked both the doc and the radiation tech if this was safe and they said they do it all the time and it’s a low exposure and it’s equivalent to just being in the world for 10 days blah blah but when they strapped me into a lead vest to do it I just felt uneasy. They had a shield near her pelvis but had to obviously expose some of it to get a photo of her intestinal tract.

Anyway the good news is the x ray came back normal and just showed a ton of poop and she got a suppository which resulted in her pooping basically a hard brick an hour later and now she’s acting totally fine.

But silly me types x rays in babies into Google and now I’m freaking out that she’s going to get leukemia and/or have reproductive issues. This is her first and only x ray but I’m so scared I did the wrong thing. A part of me wishes I would have refused it and just went straight for the suppository.

Anyone else have a similar experience or words of wisdom about x ray exposure in babies?

[Mindsight]

I would not think the doctors would give any chikd these x rays if the risk against finding out problems where not calculated in the worse case situations. So i guess at worse the risk is calculated against any future problems

[GiantMogwai]

I had an xray when I was about 4 yrs old. Did me no harm. Wouldn't worry about it. A necessary tool.

[Scass]

They don’t just do these things unless they are safe. Glad your child is better.


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[WiseMonkey]

Make sure she has plenty of fluids, she may have an intolerance to the milk (formula) she's having. Mine had this after I switched her from soy onto cows milk... Constipation!!
She had an intolerance to the lactose in the milk, so I got lactose free milk. A year of so later she was fine with cows milk, must have been a developmental thing.

[RadioGaGa]

Constipation in children is very common

I had it as a very young child and had X-Rays for it. I also had X-Rays practically every time I had a chest infection as a young child (asthmatic)... And I never came to harm or had lasting effects.

Good luck and I hope everything improves

[Worrywart84]

Thank you all.

And she’s much better today with normal poops :)

[pulisa]

My son was born with duodenal atresia and a whole host of other defects. He had a whole load of x rays and fancy CT scans as a baby. He's 33 now and cancer/leukaemia free.

Glad she's much better now.