Colic in Babies

What is colic in babies?
Traditionally a baby who is said to have colic is a baby who cries a lot for what seems to be no explainable reason.  The baby does not appear to have any abnormalities, he or she gains weight well and grows normally.  The only concern is that the baby cries and cries, especially in the evening and this is usually both trying and upsetting to the parents.  Conventional medicine defines colic as a condition where  an infant or baby cries for longer than three hours every day for more than three days a week.   They describe this crying as uncontrollable and the baby as one who is otherwise healthy and well-fed.  Conventional medicine believes that this condition is harmless. Medical references all claim the cause is not known, and believe the best solution is to help the parents to calm their baby down. 
Somewhere between 20 and 25% of babies appear to have colic.  It equally affects boys and girls, and birth order is insignificant.  Normally, colic appears in a young child at around two to four weeks of age and lasts for three to five months.

Causes: What the Medical Community Believes

In my mother’s day, colic was thought to be related to the digestive system. However, today most medical references say there is little evidence to prove it's due to gastrointestinal problems.  Many in the medical community believe the cause of colic is a combination of the baby’s temperament and an immature nervous system.  They believe that because the baby’s nervous system is immature, they are not able to regulate their crying once it starts. 

As a mother who has had 7 children…… Some of our children have had colic and others have not.  At times I, too, have thought it was simply personality differences.  However, besides being a mother, I am at my core a scientist, and experimenter and a fact finder.  In addition to this, I have been to over a hundred births and spent time with many infants and children.  Based on my experiences and experiments, I can agree with the experts who say that a nervous mother, and an inexperienced mother, or a home with lots of stress, an over sensitive baby, and many other things can exacerbate colic.  However, the major underlying root cause of this “condition” can be taken care of and it is not caused by any of these things. They are not the root cause of colic.

Recently, I searched the internet to see if there were any websites with information to help mothers of children with colic that gave advice similar to mine.  I was very surprised by what I discovered.  Most of the information, even on “natural” websites, took the medical approach and left the parent with very few answers and a handful of things to try such as vacuuming carpets, taking the child on a car ride or placing them in a battery operated swing.  I did find one website that suggested trying peppermint and chamomile tea.  Most suggestions were of things to calm the baby or get his attention elsewhere.

So, how is my advice different?  First, if you have a baby that cries………

• Check to see if he or she is hungry
• Next check to see if the baby has a dirty diaper, or an irritated bottom
• Check to see, or assess if this is a tired cry, if the baby is too hot or too cold,  if the child has been scared by a stranger or a loud noise, or if a pin is poking him (or her) and make sure there are no other discomforts.
• If none of the above seem to apply and the baby draws up his or her knees, if the baby seems to be very uncomfortable and nothing you can do seems to help very much, then your baby very likely has colic. Colic is usually worse in the evening and there are times that nothing you do will help.
• Babies with colic:
• have a healthy sucking reflex and a good appetite and are otherwise healthy and growing well. Sick babies may appear colicky but won't feed well and won't have the same strong sucking reflex. 
• may spit up from time to time, but do not vomit and/or lose weight. Vomiting repeatedly is not a sign of colic.
• typically have normal stools.

If you have done all this and your baby fits the description of a colicky baby then read on.......

My journey:
For my first baby with colic I used peppermint water.  Peppermint helps to soothe the digestive tract and relax it. I did have to use it almost every night, and it was not completely the answer, but it did help.  I worked very hard at burping him all day long. This, too, helped, but it was not a total solution.  Sometimes I did bicycles with his little legs.  I would lay him down on the sofa and “pedal” his legs ‘round and ‘round like he was riding a bicycle.  For a while this worked.  It seemed to get his mind off his pain, or break up the bubbles, (or whatever was causing the problem).  But after awhile, and on bad days this did not always help.  I found the worse my baby’s pain, the worse his screams and the less my natural remedies worked.  I frequently found myself walking the floor and taking him outdoors.  We went on many car rides.  Eventually he grew out of having colic, however, it was very, very hard to have a crying baby every day that you could do nothing to calm down and satisfy.  I do not believe it was an over active nervous system, I know he cried because he was in pain.

With my next colicy baby I used all the natural solutions I had learned from with my first and very few of them worked.  I then reached for homeopathy.  This worked slightly, but it was also a disappointment.  I believe with mild colic all these things work including homeopathy, but with a bad case of colic, nothing works.  By this time  I was a “seasoned” mother and did not let the crying frazzle me, but none the less, it was hard on my husband and I.  This child was my fourth child and he cried almost non-stop for 12 months.  He gained weight well, and he ate wonderfully, but he was always crying.

Soon after our second baby with colic I discovered probiotic foods.  With the children who followed I just gave them probiotic flora and ate raw, cultured foods if they were fussy.  I saw a night and day difference.  As time passed this became something I suggested to other mothers who asked me what to do about fussy babies.  The more I shared, the more positive feed back I received.  And today I am sold on the fact that there is a very strong link between a babies crying for unexplained reasons and their gut flora.

A baby before it is born is completely sterile.  This means it has no normal flora in its intestinal tract.  There is no normal flora in the respiratory tract, on the skin, or anywhere.  Once the baby is born it is exposed to this world and all the bacteria that lives here.  Most of the good flora the baby acquires it gets from his/her mother.  However, if the mother has an imbalance in flora, if either is given antibiotics, or loaded with mercury and/or Candida, then good flora is inhibited or eliminated.  And if the baby is exposed to pathogenic bacteria or bacteria that are not considered probiotic flora such as E. coli, then those organisms can take over the digestive tract and cause both discomfort and gas.  This problem is compounded by the fact that both the baby’s digestive tract and the liver are immature.  The secretions of bile and digestive enzymes are still in very small amounts, and many digestive enzymes are just not present yet. Because of this, during the first 3 to 5 months of live a baby just doesn't have the ability to digest many foods, nor to keep bacteria in the digestive tract under control. One of the functions of bile and enzymes is to inhibit an over growth of bacteria in the gut. Without good sufficient amounts of digestive enzymes and bile unfriendly bacteria can grow unchecked in a new born.  Fortunately, a baby with a bacteria imbalance can still digest mother’s milk. And fortunately, sometime between 3 and 5 months that baby will secrete more and more digestive enzymes and eventually he/she will be able to correct the imbalance of flora in their system. 

The baby with colic will gain weight and thrive.  However, the baby will struggle with digestive pain and distress until the flora in the digestive tract is corrected.  This is why colic does not appear until the second to fourth week of life and this is why it eventually goes away.  And this is why a mother who takes capsules of Caucasus kefir capsules or any other good probiotic will see some results. If the mother places some of the contents of that probiotic capsule on her nipple she will see a different overnight. And if the mother continues to do this, within a few weeks there is usually no sign of colic in her baby, no matter how much he/she cried before.  The turn around occurs even quicker when the mother also eats probiotic flora foods, eats raw sauerkraut or other cultured vegetables, kombucha, kefir and/or takes probiotic capsules.

Without question, the strongest, most foundational link I have found between all babies with colic is that they seem to lack good normal flora.

I would encourage anyone you know who is struggling with a crying baby, to work with probiotic flora both in their own bodies and introducing good flora to their baby.  It is so easy, so simple and very safe.  Unfortunately, this “solution” seems to be virtually unknown, even to the alternative community.

More information on Digestive Track follow the links below:

Prebiotics
Chicory Root
Normal Gut Flora: The Inside Story
Reading the Signs: The First Sign
The Next Signs
Sauerkraut