Coping With Colic

Difficult to explain, and harder still to deal with, the big C can pose a real challenge for any new mum. Sia Mitra decodes the colic syndrome

- Sia Mitra

Colic is difficult to explain. If you are one of those lucky few mums whose baby doesn’t suffer from it, you will find the brouhaha difficult to comprehend. On the other hand, if you’ve had first hand experience of colic, you are perhaps too hassled to even get into the why and how of it. All you want is a solution.

According to Dr Navreet Sharda, paediatrician, Sitaram Bhartia Institute, New Delhi, the definition of colic can be defined in the following terms: “If a well nourished, thriving infant keeps crying for more than three hours a day, more than three days a week, for more than three weeks, she is suffering from colic.” Dr Sharda explains “The cause of colic is usually unknown. In some diseases, colic can be one of the symptoms, but only five per cent of colicky babies have some disease.”

Colic usually rears its ugly head at the age of two to three weeks, and subsides by the age of three to four months. The age group of one to two months is the time of peak intensity when the baby cries uncontrollably and consistently for hours on end. Not actually a disease, colic is a behavioral phenomenon which displayed by about 25 per cent of babies. There are no tests or symptom checks for it. Dr Satish Saluja, consultant paediatrician at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH), Delhi, explains, “For some reasons, colic tends to occur more during the evening and night hours.” However, there is a method to this madness, he says. “Colicky babies usually follow a pattern. They get worked up at approximately the same time every day.”