Fill your meals with fruit. Fiber creates soft, mobile stools, says Elaine Feldman, M.D., professor emeritus of medicine at the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine in Augusta. Introduce fiber slowly. Meanwhile, try a supplement. Some women complain that they can't digest that much fiber .
Fiber supplements soften and bulk up stool and nix constipation.
Drink a lot. Drink six to eight 8-ounce glasses of water daily to soften the stool, says Robyn Karlstadt, M.D., a gastroenterologist at Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia. Fill an empty 64-ounce soda bottle with water and keep it at your desk, then help yourself until it's gone. M.D. Like many of her women patients, Joanne A. P. Wilson, M.D., a gastroenterologist and professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, has experienced the frustration and discomfort of constipation. But what she recommends is apples.