Colic - Things you should know

Colic is not a disease but some sort of stomach trouble in new born babies. Unfortunately medical science has not made any significant achievement finding its exact root cause, prevention or cure in last 2 decades. It usually start in babies of age 2-3 weeks and can prolong up to 12 weeks. It has no long term or permanent side effects to your child. It can happen with any healthy baby and at the same time not all babies get colic (lucky ones). Seeing your baby in pain is very disheartening for parents. It was one of the most challenging phase of our parenting journey.

How do I know if Baby has colic
Reason
When does it start
Treatment of colic
Does gripe water help with colic
Is colic and gas same

How do I know if Baby has colic:

Only way a baby can communicate with you is crying. So if baby is crying unconsolably, nothing sooths her (breastfeeding, rocking, patting etc.) and there is no illness, it is considered colic pain. 

One sign that we found when our son had colic was that his stomach used to be hard.  check our post why do babies cry

Reason:

As I mentioned earlier, exact cause of colic is not yet known but it is believed that it is related to baby's digestive system. A new-born baby's digestive system is weak because inside the womb, the way they nurture is completely different. In fact, they start breathing when they come in this world. Inside the womb they don't even need to breathe. By 3-4 months, baby's digestive system becomes mature and colic vanishes itself in most of the babies. 

When does it start:

It usually starts when baby is 2-3 week old and can last up to 4 months but in most of the babies it settles down by 12 weeks. It is believed that colic is at its peak when baby is around 6 weeks, after that it starts getting better. Most of the time, colic pain starts in evening hours i.e. after sunset. I think reason behind this is that in the evening digestive system of babies (like adults) becomes slow and they feel some sort of discomfort in their stomach. This is one of the reasons why babies demand milk more in the evening. They are not more hungry in the evening, but they take feed frequently for soothing only. 

Treatment of colic:

There is not any treatment for colic pain yet but there are few medicines that can give temporary relief to child. Hopefully we will have its treatment for prevention/cure in future.

There are some remedies that you can use if your baby is having colic. 

• Take a brisk walk with your baby after every feed for 10 min. Keep baby on your shoulder in straight upright position and walk for at least 10 minutes. Even if baby takes burp in first few min, walk for complete 10 min at least and If your baby doesn't burp in these 10 min, you don't need to walk for longer. In nutshell, Have a 10 min brisk walk irrespective of number of burps.

• Please do this after every feed even if it is 2 am. Remember it is just a phase, you don't have to do it forever.

• This is the most effective way to ease out colic pain. My baby was severely  colicky for 3-4 weeks and this technique worked wonders for us.   

• Apply "hing"(asafoetida) paste around  naval area. check this video on how to make hing paste or apply tummy roll on around baby's naval area. I found latter option more convenient because it is ready made, you can just pick up and apply. Moreover you don't need to wipe it off. Do give it a try. It is a very good and effective product.

• Give your baby tummy time. Tummy time is making your baby lie on tummy instead of back. Since new born can't move/hold their neck, be around them and make sure they can properly breathe when in tummy time position. 
• Best way to give tummy time to your new born is lie down them on your thighs. 

• If your child is older than a month, you can use boppy pillow for tummy time.

• Cycling exercise of baby. check this video

• I love you(ILU) massage. check this video

• Our pediatrician gave a medicine called colicaid syrup to ease out colic pain. In general it is very safe medicine with no side effects but it is always advisable to consult your doctor before giving any sort of medicine to your child. 

• If your child is on breastfeed, mother should avoid cow milk because babies are not able to digest cow milk. This recommendation is from my personal experience, some people may disagree to it but I have personally experienced that as soon as I stopped consuming cow milk, my son's colic got better by 80%. Our pediatrician also agreed to it that mother's diet impact quality of milk to some extent. 

If your baby is severely colicky and nothing seems to work or you are not sure if baby is crying because of colic or some other discomfort,  it is always good to consult your pediatrician.

Does gripe water help with colic?

Well this is a question of debate whether you should give gripe water to your child or not and out of scope of this post. When my son had colic pain and nothing was working for him, we tried gripe water to ease out hís pain even though it is not recommended by doctors because we wanted to soothe him at any cost. Unfortunately it didn't work for my child but remedies that I above discussed with you worked for him. 

So I would not recommend gripe water to any parent instead you can give colicaid after consulting your doctor and try above mentioned remedies. 

Is colic and gas same? 

Well I don't know its scientific answer but in my experience they are related. When my son had difficulty in releasing gas, he got colic in the evening and on the days when he was able to pass gas/burp properly, we didn't find colic pain. Colic and pooping is definitely not related. Some babies poop multiple times in a day and other poops once in multiple days. Both are considered to be normal. 

Boppy pillow              Tummy roll on