Banita and Amrita’s story: when fixing her daughter’s gut helped her find her words

Written by:

Alba Health team

Last updated:

Jul 3, 2026

Summary

For two years, Banita tried everything to help her daughter Amrita with severe, persistent constipation, working through private GPs, paediatricians, restrictive diets and laxatives with little lasting change. She then turned to Alba to look at Amrita’s gut, and within weeks something happened that Banita describes as life changing: Amrita started going to the toilet every day, and started speaking more too.

In this article

Two years of unanswered constipation

Finding Alba

What the test revealed

A two-year problem, resolved in two months

What Banita wants other parents to know

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Two years of unanswered constipation

Amrita is almost seven and autistic. For the past two years, severe constipation had been a near-constant presence in her daily life. Banita had taken her to private GPs and paediatricians, tried full elimination diets removing gluten and dairy, and used laxatives as recommended. None of it brought lasting relief.

“We tried so much without ever really understanding why,” Banita says. “It felt like everything we tried was about managing what was happening, not solving why it was happening.”

Finding Alba

Banita came across Alba through a webinar with founder Nora Cavani on Instagram. What stood out to her wasn’t a promise of a quick fix, but the idea that gut testing could point to a root cause rather than another symptom to manage. Alba’s testing being built specifically for children, with reference data for Amrita’s age group, made the decision easier.

“We chose Alba because they have child-specific data,” Banita says. “We could actually compare Amrita’s results to other children, not just guess.”

What the test revealed

Amrita’s results gave Banita something she hadn’t had before: a clear, specific direction. Her gut showed good bacterial diversity overall, and her levels of Bifidobacterium, important for immune and gut-brain health, were above average. But levels of butyrate-producing bacteria, which support the gut lining and healthy digestion, were below optimal, the bacterial community was less balanced than ideal, and pathobiont levels, the bacteria that can crowd out beneficial species, were elevated.

Her nutrition coach recommended a specific strain known to support childhood constipation, L. reuteri, alongside more fibre-rich foods to feed the beneficial bacteria already present, including avocado, banana, raspberries, strawberries and black beans.

“It wasn’t that a bacteria was missing exactly,” Banita explains. “It was more that specific foods could feed the ones that were already there, and a specific probiotic was recommended for the constipation itself.”

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A two-year problem, resolved in two months

Within a week of starting the probiotic and the dietary changes, Amrita began going to the toilet every single day, something that hadn’t happened consistently in two years.

“Within a week she started pooing every day,” Banita says. “Now it’s every single day. A two-year problem, and it took about two months to really turn around.”

And then, she started speaking

For Banita, the bigger moment came next. Amrita, who had largely been non-verbal, started speaking more, right around the time her constipation eased. Her speech therapist, who works with her regularly and noticed the change independently, brought it up unprompted.

“Her therapist said she’s speaking more since the constipation went away,” Banita says. “Nothing else in her routine changed at the same time. That’s just what we noticed.”

Banita describes this as the part of the story that has affected her the most.

“This has genuinely been life changing for us,” she says. “We went in hoping to sort out her stomach. We never expected this.”

What Banita wants other parents to know

Looking back, Banita feels strongly that gut testing should be one of the first steps parents consider, not the last.

“I would say, do the gut health test before medication,” she says. “We tried so much without really knowing what we were dealing with. Even if Amrita hadn’t had constipation, it would still have been worth doing, just to know exactly what to focus on.”

She also points to the experience of working with a nutrition coach as something that set Alba apart from everything else she’d tried.

“Having someone explain everything to me, the whole process and the conversation together, that combination made the difference,” she says. “It opened my eyes a lot.”

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