Colic is one of the strangest conditions to affect babies during the first few weeks of life. It seems like a stomach ache. But when you delve a little deeper, you invariably find that it is more complicated than that. The child screams and cries, but you can never really work out what’s wrong as a parent. Is it gas? Is the baby allergic to something they ate? It’s never apparent.
Just going through the motions with colic is exhausting. You try everything you can think of. And then when you are at the end of your tether, you Google symptoms and wind up getting back the same answer over and over: colic.
The problem is that colic doesn’t seem to be anything in particular. When you try to find the actual definition, you wind up with something that doesn’t seem to describe anything specific at all. Most diseases or conditions have a root cause. Colic appears to come out of the ether.
How you should respond also varies depending on where you look. Some websites say that it is perfectly normal and just a part of a baby’s life. Eventually, it’ll pass. You just have to wait. The other school of thought sees colic as an indication that there is something seriously wrong with the baby. It’s your job to get help.
The Baby Might Not Be in Pain
The thinking on colic has changed considerably over recent years. In the past, doctors hypothesized that colic was the result of intestinal distress. Infants with new gut colonies would, in their view, continually experience upset stomachs as they interacted with new foods.
Now, though, the majority view is that most colic is just fussiness. Babies, it seems, have preferences. But, of course, they don’t know how to articulate them correctly. And that means that whenever there is a slight perturbation in their psychology, they begin crying.
According to estimates, around 60 percent of colic is just crying because something in the environment goes against the child’s preferences. It doesn’t have anything to do with pain.
In 30 percent of circumstances, the issue really is the foods that they’re eating. In which case, interventions such as BioGaia could help.
In 10 percent of cases, parents are dealing with true colic. In these cases, the parents cannot soothe the baby, and they simply must wait for the crying episodes to end.
The Confusion of Colic
Colic episodes can occur almost randomly. Baby moods can turn on a dime. Sometimes, they can be chuckling away and appear perfectly happy. Then, in an instant – and without any explanation – they start balling their eyes out.
If you find yourself in this situation, it could be that you could have a case of incurable colic. The only thing to do in this situation is to allow it to play out and focus on your wellbeing. So long as you are meeting the baby’s basic needs, they should be fine. Don’t worry: this is something that affects the whole of humanity, including even the most isolated tribes.
Leave a Reply