Natural Ways To Treat Colic In Babies
- Friday, August 28, 2009, 0:26
- Baby Care, Health Care
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Colic may be defined in simple terms as persistent cries of babies extending beyond 3 hours a day. It the situation continues for a 7 days then the baby is supposed to be suffering from infant colic. It seems unnatural for a healthy baby to cry for prolonged duration inspite of being well fed and well taken care off.
It can be a harrowing experience for parents and care takers especially if they happen to be working full time. So far no definite underlying causes been stated for infant colic though there are some measures suggested to tackle this abnormal behaviour in infants.
Some experts suggest abdominal gas to be the cause of colic while others suggest the discomfort experienced by the infants to cope with both internal and external changes. Both views lack clinical findings.
On an average 20% of infants develop this symptom irrespective of gender. Colic has been found to affect babies in the age group of 2 – 4 weeks which lasts for 3 or more months. Besides excessive crying, babies may refuse to drink milk or exhibit irregular leg movements around the tummy, reddening of the face and passing wind.
Though it is not a serious condition, it can pose to be a cause of concern for parents and other family members who may have to go through much inconvenience due to non stop crying especially if the infant refuses to sleep at night.
Treatment
First of all try out a different method of feeding milk particularly if the baby still feeds on breast milk. Another measure that can be taken by mothers is to avoid intake of cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, peas, pulses, cauliflower etc.) which generate abdominal gases.
Alcohol, Tea and coffee should also be avoided completely. Incase there is a family history of lactose intolerance; such mothers should get rid of products containing lactose from their diet.
Bottle fed babies could be given soya milk for a change. If the baby seems to pass a lot of gas then parents should make it a point to give the infant a good burp after each feed. Try various ways to holding.
About the Author
Bhrat Brij has written 221 stories on this site.
