My son turned green and vomited his own faeces – and doctors still didn't take his condition seriously

Hannah realised there was a problem with her son Fletcher when he was six-months-old, but doctors “brushed us off” until she “demanded” that they perform tests for him. 

“If I hadn’t pushed for those scans, would they have ever done them?” Hannah told the Big Issue, explaining that his condition got “worse and worse” over a period of four years.

Now aged five, Fletcher has been diagnosed with a bowel condition called slow transit constipation, and uses a permanent nasogastric tube (NG tube). Hannah explained that the condition has had a “massive impact on his mental health“.

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Hannah said she and Fletcher are supporting the children’s bowel and bladder charity ERIC as they undergo their Christmas appeal, claiming the charity had been a “lifeline” to the family as they struggled to obtain a diagnosis and treatment for Fletcher. 

“I asked them if they could do blood tests or scans because I was convinced there was something more to it,” she explained, telling the Big Issue that she had first taken Fletcher to the doctor when he was six-months-old. “That went on for about four years. Then when he was four, he started to vomit faeces from his mouth, he started to look green in his skin.

“That resulted in me sitting in the hospital and demanding a scan. They finally gave in and did an X-ray, and that X-ray revealed there was faeces compacted in his bowel, and at this point, he was completely incontinent… from there, I found a condition called slow transit constipation, which I had spent hours researching online. Fletcher had every symptom on the list.”

Hannah is calling for doctors to take parents seriously when it comes to their children’s bowel and bladder concerns, saying she believes Fletcher, who will turn six in January, may not have experienced as many difficult symptoms had he been diagnosed earlier. 

“Because it wasn’t recognised a lot sooner, it’s had a more significant effect on his bowel,” she explained. “My question is, if they had listened to me when I first went, would it really be this bad? The mental trauma that was caused was really not necessary if somebody had just listened to me.”

Around three children in every primary school class in the UK experience a bladder or bowel condition. That’s one in nine children and young people, or 1.5 million across the UK. According to ERIC, this number could be higher, as “some families don’t seek help because of embarrassment, stigma or hoping that the problem will resolve as the child grows”. 

The charity is campaigning for more to be done nationally to raise awareness and funding for bowel and bladder services. It said that “cuts to essential children’s services” over recent years has resulted in children going undiagnosed for long periods, or not being able to access the support they need quickly enough.

Many NHS trusts around the UK do not have specialist bowel and bladder services for children and young people, meaning some families are forced to seek private support, or face a “postcode lottery” on the NHS, according to ERIC.

Hannah explained that ERIC, which runs a helpline for families experiencing bladder and bowel issues, has been “really supportive” of her and Fletcher. 

The charity said over the last five years, the volume of calls received by its helpline has increased by 215%, with 5,987 calls taken in the year to September 2024.

“Their website is just really helpful, because it got to a point where I felt really lost,” Hannah explained, saying other people’s stories shared on the website made them feel less alone.

“We’ve just done another week in hospital, and it was really tough. I felt like I wasn’t being listened to again, and [ERIC] was there instantly, trying to get their specially trained people to call me and talk me through stuff – they’re just there for you when you need somebody to talk to,” she told the Big Issue.

“Without them, awareness wouldn’t be so big on how many children are actually out there suffering, because people don’t talk about wee and poo, it’s embarrassing. People don’t want to talk about it. But when you go on to their websites or social media pages, you can see there actually are a significant amount of people suffering or in the same boat.”

Hannah explained that much more can be done to help children and young people with bowel and bladder conditions, claiming having to always be aware of where the nearest public toilet is has an “impact on your everyday life”.

“Businesses now lock toilets because they don’t want people to use them, and it’s the embarrassment of having to keep going up and ask for the key”, she said, adding that a lot of public toilets don’t have adequate equipment for children who aren’t babies. 

“I believe the NHS should listen to parents more,” she added. “We spend 99.9% of our time with our children, and we know them best. I feel personally that I was brushed off from the beginning as a young mum, and nobody wanted to actually explore the issues like I wanted them to.”

Children’s bowel charity ERIC is a ‘lifeline for people like me’

Fletcher has raised more £1,000 for ERIC and Hannah has urged people to get behind the charity, which has been “a lifeline for people like me”. 

“Last year, he started by selling poo emoji keyrings at school and to our friends… to try and work with the stigma around poo and get people talking about it. He raised just under £200 last year,” she explained, adding that he had also litter-picked in parks in their local area in Wiltshire, raising a further £800. 

“He’s done really well, and he just really wants to help people like him,” Hannah said. “He understands that ERIC is there to help, but they obviously rely on donations, so he just wanted to help where he could.”

She continued: “Despite everything, he still gets up every day with a smile. He still tries his best at everything. He is super amazing.”

Juliette Rayner, CEO of ERIC, added that Christmas can be a “difficult time” for children with continence conditions, due to changes to their usual routine, “and it’s just difficult for any child with any condition to be not on tip top form at Christmas.”

She explained that “discussing wee and poo is taboo” and can be stigmatised, but that “children can be really, really supportive of their peers” when there is an issue, with ERIC trying to reduce the stigma of bladder and bowel conditions so children like Fletcher can better receive the support they need.

“If you look at the the new 10 year plan for the NHS, and also some of the things Keir Starmer said when he first started, and Wes Streeting, they were very much focused on early intervention, but we still see that 25% of the population – the children – are only really getting about 11% of the resources. So there’s a definite mismatch,” Rayner said.

She explained that continence conditions can impact on children “being able to go to school, it impacts on their confidence, their self esteem, friendships, going away”.

“All of these things we should be addressing early, and they’re not difficult things to address. It just means the resources have to be there,” she said. “It shouldn’t be left to charities like ours to pick up the pieces once the problem has become unmanageable, but unfortunately that’s exactly what is happening.”

Rayner added that the cost of living crisis has impacted ERIC, saying that “costs have gone up, but donations are much harder to secure at a time when people have less to give”.

“It costs around £40 for a continence expert to provide 30 minutes’ telephone support to a young person, so to keep offering that service, as well as all the online support we offer, we really need people to spread the word and donate,” she said.

“I think it’s fair to say that because wee and poo is stigmatised, it’s not necessarily on the top of anybody’s list to give… but it is a condition, a tricky condition, that deserves just as much as attention as any other children’s health condition.”

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