Colic Solved The Essential Guide to Infant Reflux And the Care of Your Crying, Difficult-to-Soothe Baby

1 THE TRUTH ABOUT crying BABIES If your baby screams, she's not alone. It's estimated that about 1 of 5 babies have unexplained irritability. It's been 50 years since the initial pigeonholing of irritable babies with a condition that we've affectionately come to call colic. At the time that colic was first described, doctors had few means of knowing what was going on inside a baby. And in the absence of any better explanation, the idea of a five-letter word to sum it all up was warmly received. And despite what we have come to know, colic as a wastebasket diagnosis remains alive and well, a vestige of history and a comfortable place to put the babies we have such a hard time with. But your baby is screaming for a reason. It's a cry for help. THE CASE OF BABY HANNAH Hannah was 2 months old when she first visited me in my Houston office. Her pediatrician had referred her because he had exhausted all of his resources as a busy primary care pediatrician. Hannah wouldn't stop crying, and he didn't know why. The best explanation this seasoned and reputable pediatrician had was that Hannah had colic. Her problems began at around 2 weeks of age when she began crying after her feeding. Her crying progressed to throughout the day and started to affect her feeding. The pediatrician advised that her mother discontinue breastfeeding her because he feared that breast milk was the problem. Formula feeds began strong, but after a half ounce became difficult, with Hannah arching, pulling from the nipple, and in apparent pain, all while still being hungry and wanting more. The frustration of Hannah's hour-long feeding episodes were matched only by her sleep, which was regularly interrupted with piercing screams and painful gas. Her waking hours were marked by nearly constant hiccups and the need to be held and moved. Hannah's parents were told that she had colic, yet colic medication never seemed to make much of a difference. Formula changes became nearly as frequent as diaper changes, but nothing seemed to make a difference. The baby's incessant irritability, impossible feeding, and unpredictable sleeping patterns soon began to take its toll on her parents. When her mother returned to work when Hannah was 3 months old, understanding day care was hard to come by. At the end of their rope with a marriage at its limits, Hannah's parents came to see me. WELCOME TO MY WORLD Whether it's a pleasure or not, I have the opportunity to work with babies like Hannah every day. Thousands of screaming, miserable, sleepless, and impossible-to-feed babies have found their way to my office over the past several years, some sicker than others, but all delivered by desperate parents looking for answers and looking for help. This book is about what I've learned and what I know. I've always said that it was far easier being a pediatrician before I ever had children of my own. Calls in the middle of the night from the sleepless parents of screaming babies were handled as a matter of course early on in my career. But despite my comforting words, my attitude beneath was "Deal with it." I had bought into the idea that all babies scream and that some babies scream because of the stress and pressure that young parents convey to their babies. While I have always done my best to evaluate and treat every baby thoroughly, I was very much inside the system at first . . . a paternalistic, board- certified know-it-all with 6 years of residency and fellowship training at America's largest children's hospital. But I had never lived with a baby. More important, I had never lived with a baby with reflux. The birth of my daughter, Laura, represented a turning point for me as a pediatrician. Laura was a lot like Hannah, with the eVartabedian, Bryan is the author of 'Colic Solved The Essential Guide to Infant Reflux And the Care of Your Crying, Difficult-to-Soothe Baby', published 2007 under ISBN 9780345490681 and ISBN 0345490681.