Cow Milk Allergy and Baby Colic
A healthy baby that often inconsolably cries, at about the same time, often early in the morning or in the evening, without stopping for more than three hours, once in a two days per week, for more that a month: it may be because of a colic, a baby colic (also known as infant colic or infantile colic).
Colic is a very common condition in babies: almost one in 5 infants shows colicky manifestations, but this percentage is higher for bottle-fed babies than for breast-fed babies. Colicky babies often have difficulty sleeping and may prolong the feeding time, because of crying.
Baby colic usually appears within the first two weeks of life and resolves after three to four months. Beside the evident distress for both babies and parents, usually colic is not harmful and colicky babies continue to be fed, grow and gain weight normally.
Baby Colic Symptoms
Colic symptoms are not e a sily perceived , because apart from crying, the baby is healthy and well-fed. If so, symptoms of colic are characterized by:
- intensity of crying: the baby's face is red and flushed, the crying is intense and furious, and there is little, or nothing, you can do to comfort them,
- body posture – the baby may clench their fists, draw up their knees, or arch their back.
Colic attack often begins suddenly, and crying babies draw up their legs, distend their belly and clench their hands. Episodes duration may vary, from minutes to hours, and end when the baby is exhausted, or when gas or stool is passed.
Baby Colic Causes
Colic causes are not yet clearly defined, even if Colic is commonly attributable to trapped gas in the digestive tract that generates abdominal pain. Moreover, recent studies have evidenced that gas production may be related to the gut flora, a microrganism pool that lives in our intestine which has an important role in food digestion and that, in babies, is still undergoing development.
Baby Colic and Cow Milk Allergy
Although there is not a clear explanation for colic, recent studies relate baby colic to gastroesophageal reflux and to cow milk allergy or other problems in digesting milk elements, mainly lactose.
In breastfed babies, their cow milk allergy reaction may derive from the mother's diet, while proteins from cow's milk are able to pass through the mother's milk to the baby. If so, the milk allergic baby's intestine may produce gases or may also cause excessive spitting up and acid reflux.
In this case, the only cure is that the breastfeeding mother completely avoids all milk and dairy products, radically changing her diet changes.
Milk allergy colic may also show up in formula fed babies, because of the presence in the formula of whole or partially broken (hydrolized) milk proteins. In this case, switching formula to an hypoallergenic one, in which milk proteins are totally fragmented, is very important. These types of infant formulas are called amino acid-based.
Source: UK National Health Service, Medline Plus Medical Encyclopedia
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