In many adults who do not deal with young children, the word "colic" is associated with pain accompanying acute forms of kidney or gallbladder disease, and in the parents of small children - it is with intestinal pains (colic) that torment the newborn in the first three months of life .
Since with intestinal colic all the families in whom a newborn child appears face, in this article we will consider how to determine the colic in a babe.
The World Health Organization believes that "colic" is a poorly understood condition in which a child cries much, obviously suffering from pain, but he most often does not have a gastrointestinal pathology.
Pediatricians say that colic is not a disease, but a physiological phenomenon, characteristic of 90% of infants. But parents, nevertheless, must be attentive, since many diseases of the abdominal cavity in a newborn are very similar in symptoms to colic.
Intestinal colic, the main symptom of which in a newborn child is crying, is a consequence of the functional immaturity of the gastrointestinal tract, especially the system responsible for the production of enzymes. Therefore, the process of gassing in the intestine is accompanied by a painful spasm.
Symptoms of colic in newborns
To correctly identify the colic in your baby or begin intestinal illness, you should pay attention to his behavior during an attack. The usual intestinal colic in newborns can be determined by the following symptoms:
- The attack of colic begins most often suddenly and usually at the same time: either after feeding, or in the evening or at night.
- At first he starts to pucker, rot his mouth, grunt, toss and turn, showing his parents that something is bothering him.
- When the colic starts, the baby starts to knock with his legs, then pressing them to the tummy, then straightening, while still it can buckle the back and tries to push.
- At this point in the baby usually the little face of the baby turns red, and he squeezes his hands into the fists.
- Then the baby starts crying suddenly and loudly.
- The abdomen is hard to touch, i.e. swollen and you can even hear how the intestines rumbles.
- The pain diminishes or even subsides, after the baby releases the tummy (by regurgitation, after emptying, or the gazicks go away), and then begin with a new force.
- Colic increases with maternal nutrition .
- The rest of the day the child is active, cheerful, cheerful, has a good appetite and is gaining weight well.
If you observe such symptoms as vomiting (not to be confused with regurgitation ), disorder and discoloration of the stool, high fever, refusal to eat, change in general condition, you should consult a doctor, as the cause of the child's discomfort may be not colic, but intestinal infection.
Colic, which affects almost all newborn children, operate according to the following three principles :
- begin at the third week of the child's life;
- during the day, the time of colic attacks for a total of about three hours;
- completely end by the end of the third month.
If the colic suffers for more than three months, you should consult a doctor and conduct a checkup, as too long a period of colic may indicate problems in the operation of the stomach and intestines. But proper nutrition and timely treatment, it's easy to fix.
The most important thing is what parents should pay attention to, that this is an exceptionally temporary phenomenon. Therefore, be patient and remember that after two or three months the intestines of the baby will learn to work normally, then the colic will stop bothering him, and you can safely sleep at night and start to enjoy life!