When the Baby Won’t Stop Crying

By Susan Stevens Daily Herald Health Writer

Expectant parents dream of cuddling a sweet, cooing babe. One out of five will get a beet-red ball of indignant fury instead.

Colic can turn a sleepy newborn into a screaming terror. One night, you put your perfect little baby to sleep, and she wakes up wailing like a siren – and never stops for three months.

A small number of babies with colic have a medical problem like acid reflux or milk allergies. Sometimes the fussiness is due to a sleeping problem or trouble feeding. But the majority of colicky babies are perfectly healthy.

Pediatricians don’t always have time to counsel these parents, who are left feeling frustrated and isolated. A bawling baby tends to make parents shy of enclosed public spaces.

Kim Cicatello of Lakewood went through colic twice, first with her daughter Kaitlyn, now 3, and then with Lindsey, 6 months. Lindsey was quiet her first two weeks. Then the screaming began.

“Unless she was sleeping, she was crying,” Cicatello said. “It makes you really question everything. Not that anyone said having a baby is easy, but it’s not supposed to be this miserable of an experience.”

Consoling advice

Even after her pediatrician began treating Lindsey for reflux and a milk allergy, the crying didn’t stop. She cried all day, every day, no matter what the family did. Some days, when Mark Cicatello came home from work, Kim would hand him the girls and get in the car and drive, anywhere.

Her friends had “happy, bouncing babies.” They didn’t understand.

“It breaks your heart to see your baby that miserable and not be able to console her,” Cicatello said. “You think you have the worst babies in the world.”

Then the Cicatellos found the Erickson Institute, a Chicago graduate school in child development, which had launched the Fussy Baby Network.

Parents can call the Fussy Baby Warmline, (888) 431-BABY, and infant specialists will listen and help devise strategies for coping with an inconsolable baby. Need more help? They’ll make house calls.

These aren’t baby whisperers; they do not take over Mary Poppins- style to shush your baby’s cries. But they do offer a network of support and resources to parents at a very vulnerable time.

“Babies cry a lot, and it’s not so easy to figure out what they need,” said Linda Gilkerson, a professor at Erickson and one of the founders of the Fussy Baby Network. “We really listen and think with each family about their own experience, what it’s been like for them as parents. It’s very collaborative.”

On a typical call to the warmline, someone like Gilkerson will talk a parent through baby’s day. At midnight, was she asleep or awake? Was she crying? Is that typical or different? What did you do next and did that help?

“We’re listening for patterns,” Gilkerson says. “Often there is something the parent has tried but may need a spotlight shined on it.”

Since the Fussy Baby Network launched in 2003, its infant specialists have helped 1,515 families, including 317 home visits throughout the Chicago area. Clients span the spectrum. The first family they helped was two family physicians with a colicky daughter. The second family: a teen mom.

Calls to the warmline are free. Parents pay for home visits on a sliding scale based on income; the top fee is $75, but many families pay less.

The Erickson Institute is now working on a national model for the Fussy Baby Network that they can bring to California, Washington state and Arizona.

Colic and the family

Gilkerson uses the broader term “fussy baby” rather than colic, because the network serves babies throughout their first year of life, beyond when colic typically ends.

Colic does end, usually by the time a baby is 3 months old, though it can go longer. As a result, if there is no physical illness to treat, pediatricians will often counsel parents to simply endure the crying; the end is in sight.

“It’s so easy to say it will just go away,” said Barry Lester, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Brown Medical School and author of “Why Is My Baby Crying?: The Parent’s Survival Guide for Coping With Crying Problems and Colic.”

That might not be the best advice, according to infant development experts.

“The issue of crying babies is not just an inconvenience,” said Dr. Harvey Karp, a pediatrician and author of “The Happiest Baby on the Block” book and DVD. “It’s a serious cause of morbidity and mortality. This injures babies and kills babies.”

Excessive crying is linked to postpartum depression. It’s the No. 1 reported trigger for shaken baby syndrome. And it can set up a family for fractured relationships.

“In a lot of cases, sure, the crying stops,” said Lester, who founded the Colic Clinic at Women & Infants Hospital in Rhode Island. “But what happens is the parent-child relationship gets derailed.”

Dr. Larry Gray, medical director of the Fussy Baby Network and a behavioral and developmental pediatrician at the University of Chicago, worries that babies who are colicky will be labeled as difficult children for years.

Mothers who had colicky babies 20 years ago still recount vivid memories of those days. It’s a trauma that tends to cement itself in memory, Gray said, particularly if these parents do not receive support.

“We want to get in early and help balance the perspective so the baby doesn’t get labeled inappropriately, so its early relationship with its family is supported and it’s not seen as a bad baby or a greedy baby or a fussy baby,” Gray said.

“There aren’t 10-year-olds walking around with colic. But what words will families use for those kids as they grow up?”

Coming through

Cicatello had tried everything to soothe Lindsey. She walked her. She held her in different positions. She used toys to distract her. They went outside in the stroller and played music to calm her. Nothing worked.

Meanwhile, Kaitlyn grew frustrated she wasn’t getting enough attention.

After the Cicatellos called the Fussy Baby Network, they talked with Gilkerson several times a week and Gilkerson came for a home visit.

Gilkerson suggested Kim keep a journal to track Lindsey’s fussy periods and what triggered them so she could plan her day. She helped Kim find time to focus on her older daughter. She also supported Kim’s decision to switch pediatricians, which led to a more effective treatment for Lindsey’s reflux, and they had a consultation with Dr. Gray to check the baby’s behavioral development.

Gradually, things improved. Lindsey still cried a lot, but the family coped with it better. By 4 months, the days when Lindsey cried for hours grew farther apart.

“Linda helped us see it’s not just the fussy baby, it’s the whole family that is affected, and it’s the whole family that has to get through it,” Kim Cicatello said.

“I know there are still fussy times in the weeks ahead, but nothing like what we went through,” Cicatello said. “And I know I’ll be better equipped to handle these fussy times.”

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Coping with colic

What to do when the baby won’t stop crying

– Try swaddling. Dr. Harvey Karp, author of “The Happiest Baby on the Block” book and DVD, describes a system to soothe babies that uses swaddling, holding the baby on its side or stomach, shushing into the baby’s ear, gentle jiggling or swinging and sucking, either on a finger or a pacifier. The techniques are designed to replicate the sounds and motions the baby felt while in the womb. Besides his video, Karp sells a CD of white noise and has launched classes parents can take nationwide. Visit www.thehappiestbaby.org for more information.

– Keep a “cry diary.” Barry Lester, author of “Why Is My Baby Crying?: The Parent’s Survival Guide for Coping With Crying Problems and Colic,” suggests using a different color for when the baby is sleeping, awake, fussing, crying or eating; over time you might see a pattern.

– Take a break. Lester frequently counsels parents to get a baby sitter and go out without their baby. “We give them prescriptions to get out of Dodge,” he said.

– Some babies respond to infant massage or slings that are worn around the body, though clinical evidence is inconclusive that these techniques work.

– If you are breast feeding, try removing allergenic foods like cow’s milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, soy and fish. In some studies, this reduced crying in babies younger than 6 weeks. If you are using formula, talk to your doctor about changing formulas. Some babies might be allergic to cow’s milk-based formulas, and hypoallergenic formulas have been shown to reduce colic.

– In one clinical trial, infants who were fed an herbal tea containing chamomile, vervain, licorice, fennel and balm mint for a week had less crying than infants who were fed a placebo. Talk to your doctor before giving your infant any herbal teas, however. Not all remedies have been studied for safety in infants, and babies who fill up on tea might not get the nutrients they need.

– Don’t smoke. Babies of smokers cry more, and smoking during pregnancy increases the risk your baby will develop colic.

– Studies have shown that giving a baby rice cereal, simethicone (Mylicon), sedatives, antihistamines and motion-sickness medications like Bentyl are not effective in treating colic in babies, and some are unsafe.

– Do what works for your family. Dr. Larry Gray of the Fussy Baby Network says there is no magic cure for colic. “Anything can be successful, but only when it fits with what the family wants to do. I could say white noise or swinging works great, but if the family doesn’t believe it, it’s not going to work.” Instead of blanket prescriptions, the Fussy Baby Network counsels individual families to find solutions that will work for them. Visit www.fussybabynetwork.com or call (888) 431-BABY for information.

Sources: Daily Herald interviews; “A Systemic Review of Treatments for Infant Colic,” Pediatrics Vo. 106, July 2000; University of Michigan Health System

(c) 2007 Daily Herald; Arlington Heights, Ill.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.