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. 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: 1. overfeeding in a futile attempt to lessen the crying; 2. 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; 3. the presence of excessive anger, anxiety, fear, or excitement in the household; or 4. probably a multitude of other factors as yet unknown.
My heart goes out to you. Trust me everyone and I mean everyone will be giving you their opinion on what to do. My daughter had colic for about 3 months. She screamed every night from 6pm-9pm. A few things to look into are gas drops from the pharmacy to give the baby (I can't remember what they are called). Are you breast feeding? It may be something in your diet. To much iron can case the baby to have gastro distress. I wish you the best. Hang in there--it does end eventually.
I'm 54 and still get bouts of colic. My treatment is a fifth of seagrams. Works first time - everytime!
