How to Use Prebiotics and Probiotics to Ease Constipation in Kids

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In our practice, we work with children who deal with constipation and have encopresis or enuresis. If you’ve ever wondered about getting probiotics or prebiotics to relieve your child’s constipation symptoms, you’re not alone. We get a ton of questions about them. 

Although the research is mixed on whether or not they help, many of our clients have seen improvement in their child’s constipation symptoms by adding them into their daily routine.

In this post, we’ll take a deep dive into prebiotics and probiotics. You’ll learn how to use them, which supplements are most effective and how to incorporate them into your child’s diet without too much hassle. 

What Are Probiotics?  

Probiotics are living yeasts and bacteria that our bodies need to be healthy. While we are still studying all of the things these bacteria and yeast do for us, so far we know they are crucial for digestive health. 

Probiotics have been shown to help with:

• Diarrhea

• Constipation

• Reducing the severity of eczema in children

• Digestive diseases including ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease

• Boosting the immune system

Collectively, these probiotics form the microbiome in your child’s large intestine. Remember — these are good bacteria and yeasts. To stay healthy we all want them in our digestive systems.

Probiotics occur naturally in a lot of foods. However, these foods often aren’t always kid-friendly. Good food sources of probiotics include:

• Yogurt with live or active cultures

• Kefir

• Unpasteurized sauerkraut

• Tempeh

• Kimchi

• Cottage cheese with live or active cultures

If you’re wondering how you’re going to get your child to eat these foods, we get it. That’s why probiotic supplements are an easy way to get your child to take probiotics without forcing them to eat foods they don’t like.

Probiotic supplements are designed to be used for specific reasons – and they help when you take the correct supplement and dosage. So if you’ve ever tried them before and they didn’t work it’s probably because the supplement or dosage was incorrect.

For example, we’ve had many people tell us they took an over-the-counter probiotic and didn’t see any results. More often than not the product only had 1 billion CFUs (a CFU is a colony-forming unit; this is like milligrams or grams but for probiotic amounts). Some of the probiotics we recommend have 25 billion CFUs! That’s 25 times the amount found in an average over-the-counter product. (We’ll share the list of supplements we recommend for children later in this article.)

The type of probiotic in the supplement also makes a difference in its effectiveness. For example, bifidobacterium has some research from a pilot study showing that it is effective in “increasing stool frequency in children with functional constipation.”1 This is just one example of how different probiotics help with different gastrointestinal issues.

Now that you know probiotics are the good yeasts and bacteria that make up the microbiome in the digestive system, let’s take a look at how to keep the microbiome happy.

What Are Prebiotics?

The “pre” in prebiotics can be confusing at times. Because of its name, some think prebiotics should be taken before probiotics, but that’s not the case. Prebiotics are food for the bacteria and yeasts that make up probiotics. By including prebiotics, you’re feeding the microbiome in your child’s GI tract. 

So, what exactly are prebiotics? 

They’re a type of plant fiber that the bacteria in the GI tract like to eat.  Our bodies can’t digest prebiotics but they move through the GI tract to the large intestine where the bacteria munch on them.

Prebiotics can be found in a lot of high fiber foods (surprise!). These foods include:

• Apples

• Bananas

• Berries

• Flaxseed

• Leeks

• Legumes

• Oats

Prebiotics can also be found in supplements. Prebiotic supplements contain fiber, but are not considered fiber supplements. These are specifically designed to feed the microbiome, not provide bulk to the stool. Be careful with confusing these with fiber supplements because they can actually cause constipation.

When working with children with constipation, we find that adding both prebiotics and probiotics in the mix often provides the best constipation relief.

What Role Do Probiotics and Prebiotics Play in Relieving Constipation in Children?

When working with children who have constipation, we’ve found that adding in probiotics and prebiotics strategically can help. There’s also a pilot study showing that a supplement with a mixture of probiotics and prebiotics was effective in relieving constipation symptoms.2 We find that adding in probiotics helps ease discomfort during potty time and makes the schedule more consistent. 

Prebiotics’ role in constipation is pretty simple – they help keep the bacteria in your child’s GI microbiome alive, healthy, and reproducing. 

If you’re giving your child probiotics without prebiotics, then there is nothing to sustain the probiotics and they will eventually die. Just like how not feeding a goldfish results in a trip to a watery grave, not feeding the microbiome means they’ll also get moved out of the GI tract and into the toilet. If your child’s diet is lacking in prebiotics don’t worry! We’ve got some recommendations for supplements below.

3 Reasons to Use Pre and Probiotics for Constipation in Children

To summarize, here are our top 3 reasons pre and probiotics can help relieve constipation in children (in either food or supplement form):

1. Probiotics help create a healthy microbiome in the GI tract that helps the poop slide out easier. 

2. Prebiotics feed the probiotics so they stay healthy and continue doing their job.

3. Using both probiotics and prebiotics helps keep your child’s microbiome healthy which relieves constipation and other GI issues.

Now allow us to introduce you to our favorite brands and products. These have worked wonders for our clients!

What Pre and Probiotics Do We Recommend for Children?

As experts in children’s constipation, encopresis and enuresis we’ve spent a lot of time researching probiotic and prebiotic supplements. The list below are the ones we regularly recommend for our clients and have seen consistent results with.

Recommended probiotics:

• Klaire Labs Ther-Biotic® Children’s Chewable*: Klaire labs produces a high-quality product that has 25 billion CFUs which means they work for a lot of our clients. This is the “major league” one we recommend when needed.

• Garden of Life Organic Kids Chewable*: These Garden of Life probiotics have 5 billion CFUs of lactobacillus and bifidobacterium which have been shown to help relieve constipation.

• Renew Life Kids Probiotic - Ultimate Flora Kids Probiotic Gummies*: If you’re looking for a probiotic to get your child started on a probiotic, this one from Renew Life is just the ticket. It tastes great and is easy for kids to take. It is lower in probiotics with 3 billion CFUs. This is a great one to start with.

For dosing, you can follow the instructions on the packages to start.

Recommended prebiotics:

• Begin Health’s Growing Up Prebiotics*: Begin Health’s prebiotic is unique because it has a type of sugar that’s similar to that found in breastmilk and is a prebiotic. It’s also a powder that you can mix into drinks, yogurt, or other foods – making it easy for your little one to guzzle down. 

• Medtrition Hy Fiber*: Hy Fiber is a liquid that has a mild citrus taste. Your child can drink it alone or you can mix it into another drink – we recommend mixing it into lemonade.

Using probiotics and prebiotics for constipation are just two pieces of the constipation puzzle. Ensuring your child gets enough water is also important. If you want to learn more about the other ways to relieve constipation, check out our Poop Boot Camp.

Want More Help? Check Out Our Poop Boot Camp!

Dealing with constipation is scary and frustrating – for you and your child.  Poop Boot Camp gives you reliable information about relieving constipation for your child. No more relying on Dr. Google, watching endless youtube videos, or scouring all the forums where you don’t know who to trust.

Poop Boot Camp was created by our team’s Registered Dietitian and Pelvic Floor Specialist who specialize in working with children. It includes six modules packed with actionable information to get your child from constipated to a regular poop schedule. You’ll also learn how to deal with withholding, encopresis, and enuresis.

Poop Boot Camp has helped numerous parents and children. We want you to be next!

*This article includes affiliate links. We receive some compensation when you purchase through these links.

1Tabbers, M M, et al. “Is Bifidobacterium Breveeffective in the Treatment of Childhood Constipation? Results from a Pilot Study.” Nutrition Journal, vol. 10, no. 1, 23 Feb. 2011, https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2891-10-19. 

2Bekkali, Noor-L-Houda, et al. “The Role of a Probiotics Mixture in the Treatment of Childhood Constipation: A Pilot Study.” Nutrition Journal, vol. 6, no. 1, 4 Aug. 2007, https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2891-6-17.