Waiting Room
Colicky babies
A HOLISTIC VIEW
by Julie Chaplin CHHP
Colicky babies & healthy sleep habits
“Make sure you get lots of sleep now, because once the baby comes, you can’t put it back!” Eight months pregnant, anxious and excited to meet our baby and join the world of motherhood, I thought, “Why would I ever want to put my precious baby back?” But once he was born, if he wasn’t sleeping or eating, he was crying—and there were days I wished I could put him back!
Colic is an attack of crying and apparent abdominal pain in early infancy. It is characterized by episodes of irritability, loud crying, and what appears to be abdominal pain with the legs drawn up and the abdomen feeling rigid. Colic is also defined as extreme fussiness or crying for at least three hours a day for at least three days a week, for three weeks or longer. Your baby may get over colic six weeks after birth, or by three or four months.
During a colic episode, babies’ bellies often look swollen, feel hard, and make a rumbling sound. Crying intensifies, tapers off and then gets louder. Many babies grow rigid, clench their fists, curl their toes, and draw their legs toward their body. A burp or a bowel movement may bring relief.
Living with a colicky or fussy baby is very difficult. Both parents become exhausted, frustrated and stressed. Make sure you nap when your baby naps, and get extra help to cook and clean. There may not be a cure, but there is relief:
• Herb teas of fennel (or peppermint, chamomile, caraway, coriander, ginger)
• Hyland’s Homeopathic Colic Tablets
• Homeopathic Colic Calm Gripe Water
• Abdominal massage
• Sleep!
Thanks to Marc Weissbluth, MD, pediatrician and author of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, we learned how to develop healthy sleeping habits. After 6 very long weeks of seemingly continuous crying, we realized that our baby was overtired. “During the day, within a one- to two-hour time window of wakefulness, your baby will become drowsy and want to go to sleep.” Dr. Weissbluth states that if you soothe a baby when he/she becomes drowsy, the baby will fall asleep. However, if your baby falls into the 20 percent of extremely colicky/fussy babies, they won’t fall asleep as easily, nor are their drowsy cues as obvious. Watch the clock and begin soothing your baby back to sleep after being awake for an hour. Colicky babies need “longer and more complex soothing efforts to help them fall asleep.”
Effective soothing methods include:
• swaddling
• white noise
• breastfeeding
• rhythmic rocking motions
• sucking
• massage
• bathing
I don’t believe you can spoil a baby; however, you can deprive a baby of sleep, and healthy sleep is vital for a calm, alert, and more pleasant child. You intuitively know how to be a mother, and to do what feels right and works for you and your baby. Remember that a happy baby makes happy parents!
Helpful resources:
Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr. Marc Weissbluth
Secrets of the Baby Whisperer: How to Calm, Connect, and Communicate with Your Baby by Tracy Hogg
A Herbal Approach to Pregnancy and Baby Care by Margaret Roberts
A PHYSICIAN’S PERSPECTIVE
by Tracy Morton MD
Colic: crying of little infant ceaselessly
I really can’t add much to Julie’s poignant, first-hand description of life with colic. During the oral portion of the final exam for family medicine residency, one of the patients I had to interview was a first-time mother of a colicky baby. She was at her wits’ end and depressed, causing the relationship with the father and her infant son to suffer. Identifying this and assisting her to get help was the key to passing the interview, not just making the diagnosis of colic. Indeed, it can be very stressful to frazzled parents whose lives begin to revolve around these spells.
What the heck is colic?
A baby with colic cries unconsolably for at least three hours per day, on more than three days per week, for longer than three weeks. It (roughly) lasts from three weeks to three months of age. Notice all the threes? It is called the “disease of threes,” thus helping medical students remember the features of colic. Colicky babies appear very much to be in pain, likely from an intestinal source. The presence of bloating and gas suggests spasms or cramping of the muscles of the upper and lower digestive tract. Despite the apparent distress, colicky babies fortunately eat and grow well. Frustratingly, there is no known or identifiable cause.
So what does the evidence show about this mysterious condition? For sleep-deprived parents, studies show that parents are at risk of depression. Parents begin to question their skills as parents, but there is no evidence that colic is caused by parenting styles. Once colic resolves, there is little lasting effect on levels of maternal anxiety or depression.
Some have speculated that colic may foretell that the child will be difficult or have “difficult” personality traits. No studies have shown this to be true. Parents understandably are concerned their baby has a serious medical disorder and physicians are often consulted, but a careful physical exam and history are enough to rule out serious conditions.
There are no effective medications, according to the best studies. Manipulating the diet, either mother’s (in the case of breast-feeding) or the choice of formula (with bottle-fed babies) is often tried, with varying success. Studies are mixed on the effectiveness of dietary changes. It is worth a breast-feeding mom limiting nuts, eggs and wheat, and avoiding cabbage-family vegetables and onions will sometimes make a difference. Sometimes soy-based or hypoallergenic formula is recommended when bottle-feeding.
A plethora of other suggestions include car rides, white noise exposure, responding promptly to crying, use of a pacifier, massage, and herbal teas. Studies are mixed, but parents may find good relief with one or combinations of strategies.
A 2004 study stated, “the mainstay of colic management is an acknowledgment by the physician of the difficulties the parents are facing, and an inquiry into their well-being.” Knowing how difficult it is to see my own child crying, I can only wonder how parents can handle hours of trying to console their baby who seems to be crying in pain.
Then suddenly—surprisingly— the syndrome mysteriously disappears around three to four months, often overnight. Congratulations Julie—and to all you parents who have survived colic with your sanity intact! The temporary nature of colic is the best thing about it.
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