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SELF-HELP PREVENTION: COLIC
What is it?
Pain in the abdomen caused by the spasm of a hollow abdominal organ.
Colic can thus occur in the urinary passages, the uterus or the intestine, for example. The term is not often used of adult pains by lay people but is usually confined to the irritable crying of babies and young children thought to be caused by such muscle spasm.
Three-month colic is a condition so called because it consists of colicky pains (in babies) that disappear by 3 months of age. It is usually worst in the evening. Many babies with so-called colic do not have abdominal organ spasm at all-they are crying for another reason.
What causes it?
Given that the very word ‘colic’ is used so widely and indiscriminately of crying children it is essential to look at what the causes really are if one is to try to prevent any of them.
• Bottle-fed babies who are fed with a teat that has too large a hole in it can gulp down air and so get abdominal pains as the intestine passes this gas along.
• In breastfeeding mothers with a very large and fast flow of milk much the same can happen.
• Often it appears that so-called colic is not colic as such but is a response to the mother’s busyness and preoccupation with other things, rather than the baby, at the time of the day typical for ‘colic’ (6 o’clock in the evening). Some of these irritable babies may simply want attention.
• A considerable number of so-called ‘colicky’ babies are mislabeled-they are really bored, lonely or hungry.
• Recent research has found that traces of undigested foods and drinks get through into the mother’s bloodstream and thus in her milk. These proteins (mainly from cows’ milk) then upset certain susceptible babies and produce colic.
• Other foods a mother eats to which neither she nor her baby are actually ‘allergic’ can also produce colic. Onions, garlic, Chinese food, cabbage, beans, green leafy vegetables and alcohol can all be culprits. Green leafy vegetables and pulses can make a breast-fed baby very windy.
• A poor breast milk supply, for whatever reason, can produce a baby who is always hungry and cries. He is labeled colicky.
• Cows’ milk causes colic in some allergic, bottle-fed babies.
• Some teething babies suffer from ‘colic’ too.
Prevention
• Change the teat on the bottle to one with a smaller hole. Feed more slowly and ‘wind’ the baby before lying him or her down.
• If a breastfeeding mother has too much milk she can express the first milk by hand and either keep it to give to a breast-milk bank at her local hospital or discard it. The other way of overcoming the problem of too much milk is to feed from one breast only at a feed. Alternate the one you use. Allow the baby to suck at the empty breast for comfort. In this way he or she gets milk and comfort sucking and yet not too much milk. Express the unused breast if it becomes uncomfortable.
• Relax at the end of the day as much as possible. Spread out household chores through the day and pre-prepare the evening meal, for example. Try to sit down and perhaps have a small drink of alcohol to relax yourself.
• Ensure that your baby is not bored, is played with and gets plenty of stimulation and stays with you wherever you are, whether he or she is awake or asleep.
• If you are breastfeeding try cutting out cows’ milk and milk products entirely from your diet for two weeks and see if this does anything to your baby’s colic. If things improve, stay off dairy products until you wean and then don’t give them to your baby.
• If you are breastfeeding, keep off foods you find from experience give your child colic.
• If you have a poor milk supply, feed more frequently day and night and never let your baby go more than three hours without a feed-if necessary wake him or her up and feed.
• If cows’ milk is the culprit in your baby’s bottle use goats’ milk or soya milk instead.
*129/72/5*
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