Colic
Medical Author: David Perlstein, MD, FAAP
Medical Editor: William C. Shiel Jr., MD, FACP, FACR
The wonderful day you have always dreamed of has
arrived! Your beautiful, healthy baby has come home. Grandmother
comes over for a first visit and feels compelled to tell you, in
dreadful detail, about the horrible colic that the baby's father
had as an infant. The terror on her face raises your already high
anxiety. You recall seeing several articles in Working Mother
magazine on colic and wish you had read up on the topic. And sure
enough, at 6 p.m. on the dot, your little angel launches into a three-and-a-half
hour episode of uncontrollable screaming. Grandmother has long ago left with a
knowing smile on her face, and you are left with this burning question...
What is colic? What are signs and symptoms of colic?
Infantile colic has been around for a long time. In the 1950s, Dr. Morris Wessel, a well-known New Haven
pediatrician, defined an infant with colic as "one who, otherwise healthy and well-fed, had paroxysms of irritability, fussing or crying lasting for a total of three hours a day and occurring on more than three days in any one week for a period of three weeks." It is also important to remember that not all fussy babies suffer from colic. Most Infants normally cry
two to three hours per day, but this is usually spread out during the 24-hour period.
The crying or fussing most frequently begins suddenly, and often after a feeding. The cry is loud and continuous, and the spells last from one to four hours. The baby's face often gets flushed or red. The belly is sometimes distended or prominent, the legs alternating between flexed and extended straight out; the feet are often cold and the hands clenched. The episodes, while they can occur at any time of the day or night, typically begin in the late afternoon or early evening, just when parents or caregivers are most exhausted. There are some babies who are more prone to infantile colic than others. It is generally believed that if one or both parents were colicky, their baby is more at risk. Infantile
colic typically begins at about 2 to 3 weeks of age, reaches its peak at 2 months, begins to subside by
3 months, and is gone by 3 ½ to 4 months of age. But the frustrating fact remains that although one in four babies has colic and much research has been done on the topic, there is no one proven cause of colic. In some studies, no discernable cause was found for a quarter of those babies who suffered from colicky episodes. This is very frustrating for most parents.
It is certainly known that amongst all colicky babies, there are factors that may worsen the colic symptoms:
- overfeeding in a futile attempt to lessen the crying;
- feeding certain foods, especially those with high sugar content, for
example, undiluted juices may increase the amount of gas in the intestine and
worsen the situation;
- the presence of excessive anger, anxiety, fear, or excitement in the
household; or
- probably a multitude of other factors as yet unknown.
Next: What can be done to help with colic? »
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