Jennifer,

Sometimes colicky behaviour you describe can be traced to food
sensitivities, but often it cannot. Does either parent have a history of
food intolerance at all? I would suspect anything that one of them suspects
from their past, or something mum doesn't like but eats or drinks because
"it is good for her", or her favourite food she binges on. (Chocolate is
the classic one here - not just the pure stuff, but anything chocolate
flavoured in my personal experience.) Statistically, cow's milk is the most
common culprit. Eliminating this would certainly be worth a try.

Is this baby having lots of feeds and putting on lots of weight? Lots of
wet (more than 10 wees per day - I no longer just say number of nappies
because modern disposables can absorb 2 or 3 wees easily) and dirty
nappies? If yes to these questions, the colic may be a result of milk
oversupply. The mum's perception in these cases is usually that she hasn't
got enough milk, as baby is so unsettled and wants to feed all the time, so
she keeps feeding a lot and perpetuates the oversupply. Baby really has
tummy ache from the wind and wants to suck for comfort, and help shift the
wind. (If you have ever had a lot of wind in the bowel you will know what
it feels like as it moves - one moment painful and the next relief.)

My standard suggestion here is to give baby the same breast every time
he/she wants to suck in a set period, say 3 hours, then give the other
breast for the next 3 hours, and so on. Hopefully, it soon happens that the
baby only wants to feed about every 3 hours anyway, and sleeps much better.
This way, baby gets a lower volume, higher fat feed more of the time, and
this slows the digestive system down. (Mum needs to be warned about the
unused breast getting blockages, etc.) The wind is a result of the high
volume, and therefore high lactose load, feed travelling too quickly
through the gut to efficiently digest all the lactose. The excess is
fermented by bacteria in the bowel, causing wind.

Did this baby have a particularly traumatic birth - e.g. forceps, etc? I
have come across babies whose neck vertebrae are out of alignment and the
main symptom is colic. Chiropractors can treat this easily, if they are
experienced in treating babies. Might be worth checking this anyway.

An unfortunate thing that often happens with colicky babies, is that
formula *does* seem to settle them better *when first tried*. Perhaps it's
that great lump in their stomach plus the extra caseinomorphins zonking
them out temporarily. Whatever the reason, it doesn't help us convince the
mum to keep breastfeeding! Good luck with this one, and give us some more
details if you don't feel any of this fits in this case.

Joy Anderson IBCLC
Perth, Western Australia
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