How to help your baby if he has colic

What is the reason?

Improper feeding

This is the most common reason. Colic that occurs due to disorders

feeding regimen and technique are associated with excessive swallowing of air along with milk and, as a result, the accumulation of gases in the baby’s intestines.

When breastfeeding, it is important to monitor whether the baby completely grasps the areola, how greedily he sucks, and whether the intensity of the flow of mother's milk is normal (colic can occur if the intensity is too high).

If the child is bottle-fed, the occurrence of colic may be associated with improper preparation of formulas, the use of nipples that are inappropriate for age, or incorrect position of the bottle during feeding.

Colic and gas: what's the difference?

Gases in infants: symptoms and solution to the problem

Infant flatulence is a completely normal phenomenon, which is caused by the formation of the infant’s digestive system. Every day the baby eats more and more milk or formula, and the intestines do not have time to cope with it. Undigested food remains settle on its walls. They begin to ferment, and air bubbles accumulate in the baby’s gastrointestinal tract.

If the baby is tormented by gas, his tummy swells and becomes hard to the touch. The child farts often and may become capricious because of this, more often during feeding. Sometimes the baby becomes constipated due to gas. There are no other symptoms of childhood flatulence. This is how it differs from infant colic, during which the child behaves completely differently.

If your baby is suffering from gas emissions, you can alleviate his condition in the following ways:

Make sure that the baby does not swallow excess air during feeding. If you are breastfeeding, your baby should wrap his lips tightly around the entire nipple and areola. If your baby is on IV, hold the bottle at an angle of 45°C and do not shake the formula when preparing it.
After the baby has eaten, he needs to be held in a column for about 10 minutes so that he can burp out excess air.
The baby should suck the breast or bottle steadily. Too fast or slow sucking leads to the fact that the baby begins to swallow excess air.
Half an hour after each feeding, do gymnastics with the baby: press his legs to his stomach, and then straighten.
If you are breastfeeding, exclude fresh onions, cabbage, legumes, chocolate, yeast dough and carbonated drinks from your diet. Give your child Koli Krokodil drops. They contain dill, which relieves bloating, breaks down gases and helps them exit the body more easily.

Colic in infants: symptoms and solution to the problem

Infant colic begins in the second week of life and ends when the baby is 12-16 weeks old. During attacks of colic, the baby begins to scream deafeningly. Colic crying lasts up to three hours at a time and repeats every day at approximately the same time, usually in the evenings. When a child starts crying, it is impossible to calm him down. During attacks, the baby strains, blushes, clenches his fists, pulls his legs towards his stomach, and arches his back. This condition is very unpleasant, although it is not a disease. Colic torments the baby due to the imperfection of his nervous and digestive systems. As soon as the child grows up, his attacks will stop.

Important! Gas can cause colic. Air bubbles press on the intestinal walls. Spasms begin, which cause discomfort to the baby and make him cry inconsolably. Colic can bother a baby not only due to flatulence, but also due to increased excitability, acid reflux or dysbiosis.

It will not be possible to completely rid your baby of colic, but you can alleviate his condition now:

Give your child a belly massage regularly. To do this, place it on its back and move your palm clockwise around the navel several times, pressing slightly.
Apply a heating pad with warm water to your baby's belly.
Place your baby face down on your stomach (skin to skin) to help him calm down.
Turn on white noise for your baby (sounds of a vacuum cleaner, washing machine, hair dryer or audio recording with nature sounds).
In the evenings, bathe your baby in warm baths with a decoction of chamomile or string. Start giving your child Koli Krokodil anti-colic drops. Their natural composition comprehensively solves the problem of infant colic: dill eliminates gas formation, lemon balm calms the nervous system, anise relieves spasms, mint improves digestion. Within ten minutes after taking the drops, the baby will feel better and fall asleep sweetly.

Features of colic in babies

Experts identify a certain pattern in the manifestation of colic. This is called the "rule of three" and is as follows:

colic begins by 3 weeks after birth;
duration is about 3 hours per day;
colic occurs, as a rule, in babies
the first three months of life.

Most often, intestinal colic is observed at the age of 2-4 weeks, and before this time, in order to get enough, the baby needs a small and easily digestible amount of food. After reaching 2-4 weeks, the daily amount of food increases, which usually leads to digestive problems

How to determine?

It’s easy to understand whether your baby is suffering from intestinal colic. As a rule, attacks occur at the same time, mainly in the afternoon. This usually happens during feeding or immediately after it. An attack of colic is accompanied by increased gas formation. External manifestations may include redness of the facial skin, bloating and tension in the tummy. In this case, the baby may refuse to breastfeed, clench his hands into fists, tuck his legs, or knock his legs. The duration of colic can range from several minutes to 5-6 hours, with short breaks. In such cases, simple sedative measures are usually ineffective. Passing gas or stool can reduce pain. Despite the fairly high frequency of recurrence of colic, the child’s general condition does not worsen, and in the period between attacks the baby is calm, eats well and gains weight.

How to help?

To help eliminate an attack of intestinal colic and relieve pain in infants, pediatricians recommend the following measures.

Providing heat, changing body position, and using mechanical means (gas tube, enema) help relieve acute pain during intestinal colic. The listed measures are applied sequentially: that is,
if there is no effect from the previous action, the next one is performed.
To keep your baby warm, carry him in your arms, holding him close to you in the “belly to stomach” or “belly to chest” position. You can also place the baby on a warm swaddle with his back facing up. Caution is important here, since contact with an overheated diaper can cause a burn on the baby’s delicate and thin skin.
To relieve pain, you can massage your tummy clockwise.

Read visual material from MICROLAX® on how to properly massage your baby to eliminate colic and help cope with constipation:

Laxative for children with colic

As a rule, the attack stops after the passage of gas and defecation. Therefore, if the measures listed above are ineffective, you can use a gas tube or an enema. However, a regular enema can be painful for a child because it causes the intestinal walls to stretch due to the large volume of fluid. Considering this fact, it is preferable to use a microenema.

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Colic in a newborn: causes, symptoms, first aid

Almost every mother is faced with the fact that her newborn child experiences intestinal colic.
This is a condition in which pain and cramping in the abdomen are caused by increased gas formation. As a rule, there is nothing wrong with this if the condition is short-lived. If intestinal colic does not go away for a long time, you should consult a doctor. The specialists of the Carnelian center, a clinic with a professional approach to the treatment of adults and children in Novosibirsk, will help you quickly cope with the problem.

Increased gas formation in a newborn, according to doctors, is associated with the body’s adaptation to new feeding conditions that differ from those in the womb. Gases torment the child, anxiety is noticeable in behavior, the baby cries hysterically and for a long time. Colic occurs 2-4 weeks after birth and should subside by 3 months. The appearance of such a state is not at all a deviation from the norm, but it is still necessary to observe the dynamics.

How to understand that a child has intestinal colic?

The main symptoms are:

restlessness of the child for no apparent reason;
characteristic pose: the child pulls his legs towards his tummy - the condition indicates the presence of cuttings and pain in the intestines;
a sharp change in mood in the evening: in the morning the child is calm, eats well, and in the afternoon begins to scream loudly;
emitting gases;
pale skin;
anxiety soon after finishing feeding;
abnormal stool (green liquid, constipation).

Why does a newborn develop gas?

As a rule, the reason should be sought not in the health of the child, in the actions of his mother or the person who is engaged in feeding. Let's look at the main mistakes.

Violation of feeding technique

Incorrect positioning of the baby during natural feeding leads to the swallowing of excess air along with milk and provokes flatulence. When bottle-feeding, it is important to be able to hold the bottle at an angle of 45 degrees. This way the air in the container will rise up and not get into the baby’s mouth.

Binge eating

If your baby drinks too much milk, it can cause gas and burping. The solution is to feed at shorter intervals and change portion sizes.

Deviations in the diet of a nursing mother

Very often, children whose mother abuses smoking suffer from colic. The mother's consumption of teas with the addition of lemon balm, cumin, anise, and fennel helps reduce gas formation in breastfeeding children.

Doctors recommend that breastfeeding women exclude from their diet:

cabbage;
seasonings and spices;
corn;
nuts;
caffeinated drinks and products;
cow's milk and dairy products;
tomatoes;
onion.

1-2 days are enough for the mother not to eat such foods, and the colic will go away.

First aid for colic

To help ease your child's condition:

Before feeding, place the baby tummy down on a hard, flat surface;
The feeding position should be vertical, and after finishing feeding, the mother should wait until the baby burps;
performing warm compresses: a diaper heated with an iron is wrapped around the baby’s stomach. PLEASE NOTE that the fabric should not be too hot and burn;
do a light tummy massage in a clockwise direction;
while feeding, press his tummy to your chest;
place your hand on your baby's belly at the first sign of distress;
use pharmaceutical dill water;
if necessary, use a special gas outlet pipe.

If the baby suffers from colic on artificial nutrition, it is recommended to replace the formula.

And finally: do not use medications for flatulence without consulting your doctor.

Common problems and how to deal with them

Intestinal colic

How do they manifest themselves and why do they arise? Colic can appear in babies as early as the second or third week after birth. The reason is the accumulation of intestinal gases, causing pain and discomfort in the child. The manifestation of colic is usually frequent crying for no apparent reason, jerking the legs back and forth, pressing the fists to the chest. At the same time, the baby’s tummy is hard to the touch, inflated and tense. As a rule, colic occurs in the evening, but attacks can bother the baby both in the morning and during the day. After bowel movement or gas discharge, relief occurs.

How to help your child with seizures? During attacks of colic in a newborn, experts recommend, first of all, warming the baby’s tummy. You can apply a warm diaper, a heating pad, or simply hold your baby against your own warm skin. To alleviate the symptoms of colic, you can use a gas tube or special preparations based on simethicone, a substance that can “extinguish” the bubbles that form in the intestines. This will help the baby get rid of painful sensations. Before use, it is recommended to consult a specialist.

What to do in the interictal period? It is important that the baby latch onto the breast correctly. After feeding, you should hold the baby in an upright position. Pat him on the back until the swallowed air comes out. Parents of formula-fed babies should consult a pediatrician to decide whether to change formula, nipples and/or bottles. In between feedings, it is recommended to place the baby on his tummy more often, massage him, stroking him around the navel clockwise and pressing his legs to his stomach.

As a rule, intestinal colic goes away as the baby’s gastrointestinal tract matures, around three to four months after birth.

Regurgitation

How do they manifest themselves and why do they arise? This problem, which also appears in the first months of a child’s life, consists of the involuntary release of a certain amount of food from the stomach along with saliva and gastric juice. According to research, approximately 70% of infants burp several times a day. The reasons may be different. Regurgitation occurs when there is a short frenulum of the baby's tongue, improper latching on the breast, leading to swallowing air during sucking, flatulence (bloating), intestinal colic, or constipation in a newborn. This condition is associated with increased pressure in the abdominal cavity and disruption of the movement of food through the gastrointestinal tract.

When should you start worrying? Regurgitation does not pose a threat to the baby's health if he has bowel movements often enough, gains normal weight and is in good health. Usually, by the time they reach 6 months of age, babies stop burping or burp significantly less.

If regurgitation is irregular, parents should begin to worry about the child’s health. Causes for alarm may be a large volume of regurgitated fluid (from 60 ml) after each feeding procedure, poor weight gain, and infrequent urination. Be sure to inform your pediatrician about this; it is also recommended to consult with a neurologist and surgeon.

The parents' task is to ensure that regurgitated liquid does not enter the child's respiratory tract. After feeding, carry your baby in a column position for a few minutes to allow any swallowed air to escape. If your baby spits up while in your arms, turn him over onto his tummy. When placing your baby in the crib, turn him on his side.

Constipation

How do they manifest themselves and why do they arise? To begin with, it is important to understand what is commonly called constipation. If, with non-daily (once every 2-4 days) stool, the baby feels well, is not bothered by abdominal pain, and the stool is not hard, this situation is considered normal. It indicates that the baby’s body has fully absorbed mother’s milk.

But in the case when rare stools are accompanied by bloating and pain, and the stool is hard, this condition is already called constipation. In approximately 95% of cases in infants, it is functional in nature and is not a sign of any serious disease. Constipation is also caused by the baby constantly staying in a horizontal position, since the pressure of feces on the sphincters of the rectum is weaker.

How to help your baby with constipation? If the child is breastfed, the mother is recommended to consume foods that have a laxative effect - these include prunes, cucumbers, pumpkin, beets, and fresh kefir. Drinking more fluids is also helpful.

If constipation bothers a bottle-fed baby, it is important not to forget to supplement it with water several times throughout the day. Do not make the mixture more concentrated than indicated in the instructions.

Universal recommendations, regardless of the nature of feeding, include regularly massaging the tummy with a warm hand in a clockwise direction, as well as placing the baby on the tummy. It is useful to do the “bicycle” and “frog” exercises with your child.

If the measures listed above do not help, you can try laxatives approved for newborns, for example, MICROLAX® for children from 0 years old. This drug is available in the form of microenemas with a special shortened spout, designed specifically for children from 0 to 3 years old and intended for single use. The advantages of MICROLAX® are that it acts locally, directly on dense stool, and the effect begins within 5-15 minutes* after administration.

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