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From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Colic
Message-ID: <1306@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 4-Jul-85 19:09:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.1306
Posted: Thu Jul  4 19:09:52 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 6-Jul-85 09:44:33 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Oh
Lines: 71

Well, folks, our son Adam was born 3 weeks ago, and he has colic.
I'd heard stories from others about long nights spent with colicky
babies, but experiencing it firsthand is another story entirely.

Karen isn't getting a whole lot of sleep, and it's no picnic for
Adam either.  I try to help out, as does her mother, but it's not
the same - Adam often wants mommy and won't quiet for anyone else.

We've tried every colic remedy we could get our hands on.  They all
seem to work once and then go away as the baby realizes what it is.
As such, the longest possible list would be useful.  I'll list the
ones I know of here.  If you have others or can confirm/refute some
of the theories, please let me know.  I'll post the final list.

Theories about what causes colic: nobody knows.  Some say it's an
immature digestive system (in this case, it should correlate with
premies, does it?)  I've heard it's worse when you breast feed (we
are.)  I've heard it can be caused by stress in the mother when
breast feeding.

Length of colic: everyone says it won't last longer than 3 months.
That sounds like forever right now.  What is the distribution?  Is
it linear between 0 and 3 months?  Between 2.5 months and 3 months?
How likely is it to go beyond 3?

Remedies: the problem is almost always gas pains, either in the stomach
or the intestines.  As such, a burp or fart usually produces relief.
(For a few minutes, at least, then another gas pain develops.)
So the standard thing is to bounce the baby around at every imaginable
angle (to encourage the gas bubbles to move) to get them out.
This is surprisingly ineffective most of the time.  (We're not novices
either, Karen's mother has been foster parent for about 15 babies, some
of whom had colic.  Claim is 20% of babies have it.)

The claim is that holding the baby helps.  He certainly demands being
held, and if I ignore him he gets REALLY upset.  I can tell when it's
a real colic scream because his legs draw up and straighten out, the
classic sign of baby belly pain.  The screams are usually colic related.

Other random ideas and remedies:
	(1) hold baby
	(2) burp baby
	(3) put baby on tummy with a hot water bottle.
(I just got handed Adam, so I'm typing with one hand.)
	 4. rub/pat back
	 5. massage feet
	 6. snugly baby carrier on chest
	 7. avoid gassy vegatables like brocolli
	 8. swing
	 9. medicine which makes it easier to burp
	 9a. medicine with alcohol which puts baby to sleep - not recommended
	 10. sing to baby
	 11. pacifier
	 12. water bottle
	 13. rocking chair
	 14. cradle rocking
	 15. feed baby
	
(Two hands again.)  He gets hiccups a lot too, is there any
correlation?

One thing we've found is that by starting him on hot cereal at
2.5 weeks, he'll eat lots of cereal at 10 PM, then nurse, and
then sleep until 3 AM or so.  Those 4 hours of uninterrupted
sleep are the best 4 hours of the day.  Otherwise he's up every
hour and takes a half hour or more to quiet, leaving maybe 20
minutes to sleep before he's up again.

Any advice would be appreciated.

	Mark