Dr. Komarovsky about colic in a newborn

Infant colic - a terrible dream of newly minted parents. More precisely, the fact that it completely deprives the entire family of sleep and delivers a lot of suffering and hassle. The kid screams, presses legs, sleeps badly and not very good at eating. Mom and Dad, just yesterday, so happy during discharge from the maternity hospital, fall into a stupor and begin to look for answers to questions on how to help the child (and at the same time to themselves).

The pediatrician Yevgeny Komarovsky, an authoritative author among millions of mothers, devoted a lot of time to this topic - he talked about colic in his TV programs, wrote in books and articles. In one article we tried to collect as much information as possible about this big problem of little men and their parents.

Colic in newborns is a fairly common problem. And despite the abundance of materials written on this topic, parents, no matter how they prepare for the birth of a child, no matter what they read on the topic of caring for a baby, they always feel defenseless and confused before colic. And it does not matter, the first child they raise, the second or fourth. Colic in this respect is completely merciless - they "mow down" parents with the most varied experience.

The exact cause of such an unpleasant condition in a child is unknown to science.

Some doctors talk about unformed microflora, others argue that this way the child's body adapts to the environment. Most likely, everything is right a little.

When colic begins, parents don't have to search for the true causes. They would get rid of the symptoms, but they are quite bright and confusing them with something else is quite problematic: the child cries, presses the legs to the tummy, and the pain has a paroxysmal character. When feeling is observed bloating, after the discharge of gas, the baby is clearly better, the pain releases for a while, the baby relaxes and stops crying until the next attack.

Most often, colic begins 1-2 weeks after birth and lasts up to 3 months, and sometimes longer. Boys, according to statistics, suffer from them more often than girls, and their problem is protracted (sometimes colic continues to repeat occasionally at 4 months). In total, the problem is in some way peculiar to 7 children out of 10.

Traditionally, pediatricians prescribe simethicone-based drugs to relieve colic - “Espumizan», «Bobotik", Etc., dill water, tea with fennel for newborns, heating pad or a diaper heated by the iron and laid out on the tummy. The famous doctor Komarovsky on infant colic has a slightly different look.

Dr. Komarovsky will talk about the causes of colic in a newborn in the next video.

Yevgeny Komarovsky encourages parents, extremely tired with the intestinal colic of their offspring, to understand the main thing: colic is completely normal and temporary. In the intestines of the crumbs, there is a mass of the most important processes, the purpose of which is to prepare the child for life in this world, with its bacteria, viruses, protein-antigens and other threats.

Previously, the baby received food through the placenta.

However, this, Komarovsky emphasizes, is also just one of the theories, since the true cause of the phenomenon is unknown to medicine.

To recognize colic, even inexperienced parents can be quite simple, because the crying of a child with them can not be explained in any way - pipsqueak is full, dry, healthy. And while he screams, sometimes for several hours a day. Komarovsky emphasizes that, as a rule, crying with colic most often begins in the second half of the day and closer to the night.

To feed a baby who suffers from abdominal pain is quite difficult. Great patience is required of the parents - the little man turns out, throws the chest or pacifier, shrinks and arches. He quickly gets tired, while he remains half-starved, and he has no strength to continue to suck. It is at this moment that the child very sensitively feels the mood of the parents. Their weakness and confusion, and even anger and resentment, even if they suppress it, is very well perceived by the child, and he begins act up with a new force. Remember that the emotional connection between mother and child is still very, very strong.

The realization that colic is not so much a problem of the child as the big trouble of his parents will help calm down and get himself together. It was they who erected the usual physiological process into the category of a terrible agonizing illness; they are worried, afraid, nervous.

But the pharmaceutical industry and pharmacists have found a way to earn money on parents who want to alleviate the condition of the child at any cost. They are offered a lot of drugs, vegetable and synthetic, supposedly from colic, special feeding bottles with a nipple, which supposedly do not allow to swallow air when feeding.

There is also a mass of adapted dairy mixes with a tempting inscription on the box "Antikoliki". They, according to manufacturers, do not cause colic at all and “quench” them in the bud.

All this is not a cheap pleasure - no more than a publicity stunt, Komarovsky believes. There is no cure for colic! This physiological condition passes by itself when the time comes, but parents who cannot do anything at all with pains in a baby are quite sure that one of the many tried remedies helped them.

In a variety of drops and syrups for the discharge of gas cars, by and large, there is nothing harmful, Komarovsky emphasizes. That is, parents give harmless medication to the crumbs, but the benefits of simethicone (all synthetic preparations for such cases consist of it) are rather doubtful. Even with a significant overdose, these funds from increased gas formation do not adversely affect the children's body. Therefore, the doctor calmly refers to such means, if the parents want to do something to feel that they have not abandoned the baby in trouble, let them give such drops.

Much worse, if active moms and dads start to deal with colic in more dangerous ways - push gas tubes into the child, put enemas on him, carry him around the tests and demand pain relievers from the pediatrician (yes, such parents also exist in nature!) .

The venting tube, which is often advised to buy local pediatricians at the pharmacy, is rather rough and, according to Dr. Komarovsky, inept actions of moms and dads who have never injected it before can lead to a mechanical bowel injury. Such a tube it is quite easy to pierce through. And this is best known to pediatric surgeons, to whom babies with such bowel injuries are taken to hospitals almost every day.

It is also not necessary to try to cope with the problem of giving the screaming baby a breast or a bottle of the mixture. Gaziki he appeared already, most likely from overeating, no need to exacerbate the situation, in the hope that the baby will calm it down. Such a mistake, according to Komarovsky, makes every second mother, regardless of her parental experience. The grandmother's instructions sat down very firmly in the minds of the mothers - yelling, so hungry. This is a mistake, and it should not be allowed.

Much has been said and written about the nutrition of a nursing mother, which in some way can influence the presence or absence of colic in an infant. And often the pediatrician puzzledly asks the mother of a screaming child with colic, and that, in fact, she herself eats. This is completely unnecessary information for the doctor, Komarovsky says, because the food of the mother and her diet in no way affect whether the crumbs have a stomach ache from gas.

Many mothers say that with severe pain in the tummy, a baby can help with motion sickness. But there are those children who can’t be stilled by wearing them. Yevgeny Komarovsky recommends that you stop pumping the baby and carry it back and forth around the apartment if the motion sickness does not help. Stop should be on time.. And after stopping to sit down and think about this ...

Very often, doctors and reputable medical publications advise parents to put their baby on the tummy more often, because it strengthens the abdominal muscles and helps to reduce the intensity of pain. Yevgeny Komarovsky advises to treat such recommendations with all seriousness for the very reason that one thing to lie on the stomach for five minutes under the supervision of a mother or father, and quite another - to lay the child on the stomach to sleep.

• Be patient and try to "unite" the ranks. Colic is a problem for both moms and dads, a common task.And because all decisions on how to alleviate the condition of the crumbs, what to give him, and whether it is necessary to give something at all, both parents must take jointly and severally. Komarovsky says that colic in his rich medical practice very often became the cause of divorce. After all, an unkempt mother who has a child screaming for colic from a child for days is not the best company for a dad who has come back from work and wants to eat and drink at home.

• Every family, where the appearance of the toddler is planned, or he was recently born, needs to master the tummy massage technique. This helps to alleviate the condition of the child, such procedures can be done in the intervals between feedings for 5-10 minutes. Put the baby on the back and fingertips in a clockwise direction. Massage the belly around the navel. This will help to divert excess gazikov. The massage is simple and available at home on its own.

• If the causes of spasmodic pain in the intestines of a child are not completely understood by scientists and physicians, then practitioners have long noticed two main factors that can increase the intensity of pain during colic and the frequency of attacks. The first is overheating, and the second is overfeeding. A child that is being muffled and protected from any drafts, and at the same time stuffed through force with milk or a mixture, is more likely to begin to suffer from colic than a child, whose parents more adequately relate to the organization of their child's life.

• Proper organization of the day of the child - the best way to deal with colic and at the same time the best way to prevent. Dr. Komarovsky is sure that the kid who does not overeat, often walks in the fresh air, in whose room parents not only do wet cleaning every day, but also humidify the air and air, make sure that it is not hot, less colic.

• The best remedy for colic, according to Evgeny Komarovsky, is time and a normal adequate attitude of parents to this temporary phenomenon. Only patience and love for each other of all family members can help endure these difficult several months.