Whats Your Opinion About The Cause Of Colic
I believe the key to understanding colic is that our babies are born three months before they’re really ready for the world. And because of that, they have this funny combination of being over-stimulated, on the one hand, and terribly under-stimulated, on the other . In the womb, the baby has a non-stop symphony of sensations. He or she is being held, touched, and jiggled, and hears the non-stop sound of the blood flow, which is louder than a vacuum cleaner, 24/7. So to bring a baby into your house and put them in a dark, quiet room by themselves is actually sensory depriving. Some kids can tolerate that, and some kids just fall apart without the stimulation that they had inside the womb. And, what I observe in my work is that when you imitate the sensations of the womb, it doesn’t just reassure them it literally flips a switch. It turns on a calming reflex that all babies have at birth.
How To Help A Baby With Colic
There is no treatment for colic. Different things will help different babies. As you get to know your baby, you will learn what works for you.
Things that might help include:
- Hold your baby close during a crying episode. You are not ‘spoiling’ your baby by responding to their needs in this way.
- Sit your baby upright during feeds.
- Wind or burp your baby after feeds.
- Gently rock your baby.
- A warm bath can really help some babies with colic.
- Avoid over-stimulating your baby with loud noise, bright lights or a crowded room.
- Gently massaging your baby’s tummy before they are likely to cry may help. Do this in a circular motion. Do not massage after a feed.
There are some other things you may like to try. There is no scientific research to support their use, but some parents find them helpful:
- Movement and motion, for example a walk in the buggy or pram, or a car journey.
- ‘White noise’ like the low frequency noise of a vacuum cleaner, a radio not tuned in properly or ‘white noise’ music or apps.
Adjust What Mommy Is Eating
Other less popular options include watching what you eat and changing the infants formula when you notice discomfort. Your current diet could be causing gas for both you and your baby when breastfeeding.
What you eat affects a baby when he or she is breastfeeding. Lactose intolerant babies can thrive on lactose-free baby formulas and experience reduced signs of colic.
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Gripe Water And Colic
In the category of little evidence, lots of anecdotes is gripe water, touted as an herbal remedy for everything from baby gas to colic.
Some parents swear by gripe water as a way to calm a colicky baby, but no reliable studies have shown its effectiveness in relieving colic symptoms. And because it’s not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration , gripe water can also be a wild card in terms of what’s actually in it and in what quantities. Always check with your pediatrician before giving your baby gripe water or any other treatment marketed as baby colic drops.
When To Visit A Doctor
Talk to your Plunket nurse, call PlunketLine, or your doctor’s office if your baby:
- isn’t feeding well
- doesn’t settle or continues to cry for long periods
- has a different cry than normal. A louder, more urgent or high-pitched cry could be a sign of a more serious illness.
Or if you:
- aren’t coping well with the crying
- feel anxious or depressed
- feel your baby’s crying has an impact on how you feel about them
- feel the crying is affecting your relationship with your partner.
Colic
The Period of PURPLE Crying program aims to prevent the shaking and abuse of infants.
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Check In With A Lactation Consultant
If youre a breastfeeding mom, this is so essential. There are so many anatomical issues that could be causing your baby grief! Unfortunately, most pediatricians arent trained to spot these conditions, so be sure you find an IBCLC-certified lactation consultant. Your baby could have a bad latch. She could be tongue-tied. He could be lip-tied. All of these issues could cause some major colic symptoms!
You also want to be sure baby is getting enough hindmilk, which is higher in fat, calms the stomach, helps with digestion, and promotes satiety. If your babys poop is greenish, frothy or mucuosy, this is usually a sign that hes getting too much foremilk, which can cause digestive distress. This often happens when a breastfeeding mom has an overactive letdown or is having oversupply issues, which is very common in the first few months after giving birth.
Signs Of Colic In Babies
Dr. Lester says the colic symptom checklist includes the sudden onset of a high-pitched, screechy “pain cry” and inconsolability. Other signs include an enlarged stomach, passing more gas than usual, and extending/pulling up the legs.
What’s the difference between normal crying and colic? With normal crying, the wails are usually related to a need , and come in no particular pattern throughout the day and night. Fussy babies tend to calm down with cuddling, being held, being sung to, or being rocked. Colicky babies, on the other hand, suffer from unprovoked crying spells that don’t stop after trying soothing techniques.
“Colic is not the same kind of cry you’d get with ‘I’m hungry,’ or ‘I’m dirty,’ or ‘I’m tired,'” says Parents advisor Jennifer Shu, M.D., coauthor of Heading Home With Your Newborn. “With a hunger cry, babies feel better when you feed them. With colic, you don’t know what your baby wants.”
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When Should I Call My Child’s Healthcare Provider
Before assuming your child has colic, look for other signs of illness. These may include:
- Not sucking or drinking a bottle well
- Drinking less milk than usual
- Becoming more irritable when held or touched
- Having a strange-sounding cry
- Having a change in breathing rate or using extra effort to breathe
- Being more sleepy or sluggish than normal
- Fever of 100.4°F or higher, or as directed by your child’s healthcare provider
Can You Describe What Happens To First
Everyone pictures having the perfect baby who is going to be cuddly and sweet and never have any problems. So it’s very unnerving to have a baby who cries and cries for long periods, and nothing makes you feel worse than not meeting your babys needs. It’s even more serious than that, because it turns out that crying and exhaustion are the number one triggers for some serious problems like marital stress, postpartum depression, shaken-baby syndrome, breastfeeding failure, and even sudden infant death syndrome and suffocation, because babies cry so much that the parent will bring the baby into bed with them and accidentally get the baby in an unsafe position. It also leads to parents starting smoking again, and to obesity . Besides making you feel incompetent, then, having a colicky baby actually leads to a whole host of serious and expensive medical issues. Now, colic usually peaks at about six to eight weeks of age, and usually by three to four months of age it’s pretty much passed on its own. But if you can do those 5 S’s during those first few months, you really can help your baby settle faster. Interestingly, the more you do the Five S’s, the faster your baby will responds to them. Babies learn that those things are going to calm them down.
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Coping With A Colicky Baby
Colic may be more harmful to worried and frustrated parents than it is to babies. A colicky baby cries for more than three hours a day more than three days a week.
As many as one in 20 babies have colic at some point during their early infancy. Its important to remember, however, that no matter how hard it may be to cope with a constantly crying baby, colic is a harmless condition as long as a medical condition has been ruled out by your pediatrician.
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If Your Baby Has Colic The Never
Does your baby have intense crying spells that last three hours or more? They might be suffering from colic. Theres no specific definition of colic, but it generally means excessive crying for no explainable reason, says Barry Lester, Ph.D., director of the colic clinic at the Brown University Center for Children at Women & Infants Hospital in Providence, and coauthor of Why Is My Baby Crying?
Pediatricians generally use the rule of threes to determine the condition: when a baby cries intensely for three or more hours at a time on at least three days of the week, for longer than three weeks in a row for no apparent reason, says Mary Ann LoFrumento, M.D., author of Simply Parenting: Understanding Your Newborn & Infant.
Colic usually begins around week 2 or 3 of the babys life and peaks at around 6 to 8 weeks. Unlike with regular infant crying, attempts to stop colic-induced sessions by feeding, burping, rocking, or changing the diaper arent successful. The condition subsidies around 3 to 4 months of age.
Some babies will respond to many of these interventions, some babies wont respond to any, and a lot of babies will respond only sometimes, explains Larry Scherzer, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington. Usually by the time you try everything, the baby is old enough that a lot of the crying has ceased.
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Crying Associated With An Allergy
When your babys crying is persistent and not related to hunger, sleep, or general discomfort, cows milk protein allergy may be the cause. Colic due to cows milk protein allergy tends to follow a pattern of threes: crying for more than three hours per day , for more than three days per week, and for more than three weeks.
What Helps: You should consult your paediatrician to determine if your baby’s crying is the result of a cow’s milk protein allergy.
Why Do Babies Get Colic
The nature of colic is uncertain. There is a lot of research that has been carried out on the cause of colic and none seems definitive, although it is currently recognized that there is no single cause and that it is usually a mixture of factors related to the immaturity of the digestive system, stress and the alergies.
As for the digestive system, it seems that its immaturity causes it to fill with air, which causes gas and discomfort that end up giving rise to colic.
In addition, recent research work has discovered important changes in the intestinal flora of infants with colic . The flora of these children has been seen to be different from that of children who do not have colic. Thus, children with this problem have fewer colonies of lactobacilli and a greater number of putrefactive bacteria. This has a significant impact on the processing of sugars and fats in the intestine, which can cause colic.
Based on this, in recent years the oral administration of certain strains of bacteria such as Lactobacillus reuteri has begun to be used as a treatment, which alleviates discomfort from the first week of treatment, being even more effective if combined with prescription of drugs for gases, such as simethicone.
These findings suggest that feeding the infant with milk containing probiotic bacteria that contribute to modifying the bacterial population may have a beneficial effect on the colicky child.
1- They begin in the third week of life
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Whats The Difference Between Colic And Normal Crying
There isnt a clear definition of exactly what colic is or how it differs from other types of crying.
But doctors typically agree that colic crying is louder, more intense and higher-pitched than normal crying sometimes almost like screaming.
Colicky babies also seem inconsolable, and tend to cry more throughout the day than babies without colic.
Most often, colicky periods recur daily, though some babies take an occasional night off.
Complimentary And Alternative Medicine
No clear beneficial effect from spinal manipulation or massage has been shown. Further, as there is no evidence of safety for cervical manipulation for baby colic, it is not advised. There is a case of a three-month-old dying following manipulation of the neck area.
Little clinical evidence supports the efficacy of “gripe water” and caution in use is needed, especially in formulations that include alcohol or sugar. Evidence does not support lactase supplementation. The use of probiotics, specifically Lactobacillus reuteri, decreases crying time at three weeks by 46 minutes in breastfeed babies but has unclear effects in those who are formula fed.Fennel also appears effective.
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What’s The Difference Between Colic And Normal Crying
There isn’t a clear definition of exactly what colic is or how it differs from other types of crying.
But doctors typically agree that colic crying is louder, more intense and higher-pitched than normal crying sometimes almost like screaming.
Colicky babies also seem inconsolable, and tend to cry more throughout the day than babies without colic.
Most often, colicky periods recur daily, though some babies take an occasional night off.
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What Ancient Lessons Can We Learn From To Reduce Colic
There are many things that we can do to imitate what people do in Africa, and even to be better and more effective than the moms in Africa. Holding your baby, ensuring skin to skin contact, carrying your baby in a safe sling, and nursing those are all wonderful ways of meeting your baby’s need for contact and for nurturing stimulation. In addition to that, we’ve got things like white-noise MP3s and CDs, swaddling blankets, and reclining swings that can make the baby feel like he or she is in your arms when you have to leave to take a shower or cook dinner. And of course there are pacifiers if you’re not going to be available. So there are a lot of tools that we have to allow us to be effective caregivers.
When To Call The Doctor
If your baby’s crying is incessant, no doubt you’ve already had several powwows with your pediatrician. “Even though colic is normal, it’s not something you should keep quiet about, because there will be babies who do have something else,” says Larry Scherzer, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington. Additionally, you may benefit from extra support, as coping with a crying baby is no easy feat.
Apart from fussiness, additional red flags that could indicate a more serious medical condition include frequent vomiting, fever, loose or bloody stools, poor weight gain, difficulty with feeding, eczema, and lethargy. Keep a diary that tracks how often your baby cries, sleeps, eats, poops, and pees. Any difficulties with feeding or spitting up may help you discover if there’s a pattern to the crying.
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Does Your Baby Have Colic
All babies have periods of crying and fussing. Its considered colic when the crying goes on for more than three hours a day for more than three days a week. The crying is often accompanied by burping and other signs of gas, which may be because the baby is swallowing air when they cry.
When parents come to her about a crying baby who isnt easily consoled, Dr. Bonita asks questions and examines the baby to rule out health problems. If the baby is eating well and growing, has no vomiting or diarrhea, and follows a pattern of extended crying in the evening it is probably colic.
Colic typically starts when babies are about 3 weeks old, with extended periods of crying in the evening, between 6 p.m. and midnight. The long crying spells usually end when the baby is about 3 months old, though some babies continue to have crying spells until they are 6 months old.
Other Reasons Why Young Babies Cry
- Gastroesophageal reflux. Most newborns reflux due to the immaturity of their gut. Basically, the short distance between their mouth and stomach, combined with a relaxed sphincter at the stop of their stomach contribute to the likelihood of reflux.
- An infection. A urinary tract infection or ear infection can cause intense crying.
- A hernia typically an inguinal or umbilical hernia.
- Nervous system immaturity.
- A nappy rash or other irritating skin condition.
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Develop A Bedtime Routine
Babies do well on routines. It helps them know that its time to settle down and go to sleep. Routines make your baby feel safe and calm because they know what happens next.
Developing a bedtime routine takes time, but colicky babies may benefit from simple nightly routines, such as a bath followed by lullabies and being rocked. Now is the time to start developing a routine, but dont expect it to help immediately.