Description

Infant colic can be very stressful for (new) parents. Dr. Hands gives some tips on how to deal with colic.

Transcript

How to Deal with Infant Colic Pediatrics is not complete without talking about colic. Colic really is trying with a certain definition we call the Rule of 3’s. It lasts greater than three hours, it occurs more than three days a week, and it occurs more than three weeks. Colic is also associated with certain maneuvers such as growing legs up seeming to be in more distressed than simple crying with hunger. Crying is not real bad obviously, and that a colic gets attention, it gets responses from the parents, it gets needs satisfied. Terry -- his studies show that 25% of all youngsters cried or fussed greater than 3.4 hours a day. But colic has its bad sides, and its crying is a bad sign to the caregiver: exhaustion, breastfeeding failure, marital stress, postpartum depression, and of course, has been famous is, of course, the child abuse due to the annoying aspect of the constant crying and irritability. There are other theories as to the cause of colic really the answer that no one really knows. The most popular one is gastrointestinal disorders related to immaturity of the gastrointestinal contractility and motility studies. Maternal anxiety is a factor and it is a factor brought up as the cause of colic. Difficult infant temperament is always blamed for and indeed, if you look at kids who have attention deficit syndrome, a high portion of them were irritable babies. But, if you look at irritable babies, you can't necessarily say that they will become attention deficit kids where it does not work both ways. Brain immaturity obviously has been blamed. What is the solution? Well, the solution basically is cuddling, rocking the baby whenever he cries early on. Most experts feel that babies cannot be spoiled in the first three to four months, only after that. There are feeding strategies. You don’t feed every time he cries. Babies fed too often during the day, become hungry rapidly, and they frequently at night, and tend to cry all the time at night. Therefore, they end crying frequently. It takes two hours for stomach to empty therefore if the baby is crying before the two hours are up, there is no need to refeed the baby. Feeding brings up an issue, it is the crying due to formula, and our formula changes in the winter. The answer is scientifically, formula changes probably have no role. Without other signs of formula intolerance, which are mostly things like diarrhea, anorexia, et cetera, the change in formula probably is the only advice. It maybe something that a doctor does to simply stow off a time to give the parents some hope that he is doing something because this is a self limited problem that lasts no longer than the first three to four months and disappear. It is true though if you're breast feeding maybe avoiding coffee, tea, cola and other stimulants is a reasonable approach. At the last resort, you have to let the baby cry. There are a lot of the devices now on the market now that you can pursue. There are devices that cause rocking of cribs in motion in baby’s bed. There are sound devices. They are also using alarm clocks, radios, TVs and other distracting devices that can be helpful. There are Swing-O-Matics, and what seems to work very well when it occurs in reasonable hours putting the child in a snuggly and walk him around. Now, you notice the word medicine has not crossed or solution less. Indeed, we like to make a point that no medicines have really shown to be effective for this so that we are not in the habit of prescribing medicines most of which all have the side effect of sedation, and in reality, that’s what they are doing, not treating a cause or the specific entity that we’re treating.