Infant Colic

Baby Colic Information

What Is Colic?

Listening to a crying baby can be incredibly stressful. Having a baby that cries most of the time can be a truly difficult experience for parents. An infant with colic is commonly described as a baby that cries for extended periods and cannot be calmed using the traditional techniques.

What makes having a colicky baby so difficult is that the typical calming measures do not work and there is no medical cause or explanation for the crying.

So much crying can rattle anyone's cage, especially when your efforts to soothe your baby are so consistently unsuccessful. However, it is important to know that colic does not last forever.

How Is It Defined?

There is no agreed-upon definition for infantile colic. Most healthcare providers consider a baby to have colic when he or she cries for more than three hours straight at least three days per week for more than three weeks but has a clean bill of health otherwise. This is known as the "rule of three," or the Wessel criteria.

When Does Colic Begin?

Typically, colic begins when a baby is about three weeks old. Just when you think you are cruising along, things could get a little rocky.

If your baby begins crying so much that you think he might have colic, speak to your baby's healthcare provider to confirm your suspicion. If the diagnosis is confirmed, the healthcare provider might be able to shed some light as to the cause and offer some suggestions on how you might be able to minimize your baby's colic symptoms.

(See Baby Colic Causes to learn about the possible causes of colic and suggested solutions.)

How Does Colic Differ From Normal Crying?

Research studies have shown that the amount of "normal crying" during the first three months of life can range from about 40 minutes to 2 hours per day. This crying can be for a number of reasons, including things such as hunger, pain, overstimulation, or being tired (see Understanding a Crying Baby).

A baby with colic cries for longer periods and more often than a baby without colic. A couple of other differences between "normal" crying episodes and a baby with colic include:

The cry has a distinct beginning and end
The cry is louder, higher-pitched, and more intense
The infant can't be soothed
The infant's muscles are tense (such as clenched fingers, tight arms, and/or legs pulled up into the abdomen).

(Click Colic Symptoms for more information.)

How Common Is It?

Colic is reported to occur in between 8 percent and 40 percent of infants. Part of the reason for this wide range is that there is no standard definition of colic.

What Causes Colic?

No one knows for sure what causes colic. Researchers have studied possible biological, social, psychological, and physical factors. However, no single factor has been shown to cause the condition.

Because babies with colic are otherwise healthy, it is not caused by a medical condition. It is also not caused by something that the parents are or are not doing.

Risk Factors

Researchers have not been able to identify anything that increases the risk of a baby developing colic. Some of the factors that have been studied that have not shown any increased risk include:

Bottle-fed versus breastfed infants
Gender
Full-term versus pre-term babies
The first versus the second child
Siblings of an infant who had colic.

Two studies did show that infants exposed to tobacco smoke either in the womb or following birth were twice as likely to develop colic than those who were not.

Diagnosing Colic

There are a couple of things that are unique when diagnosing colic. First, colic is diagnosed only after other medical conditions that cause excessive crying have been ruled out. Second, the diagnosis is often confirmed after the fact, meaning once colic symptoms have improved (see Diagnosing Colic).

You should also talk to your healthcare provider if:

Your baby has a fever of 100.4ºF (38ºC) or more
He or she could be crying because of a fall or injury
You are afraid you might hurt your baby
Your infant is failing to gain weight
The excessive crying continues after your baby is more than four months old.

How Long Does It Last?

You can take comfort in knowing that colic will not last forever. Typically speaking, the condition peaks around six to eight weeks and then goes away around the baby's third month (symptoms get better in 60 percent of infants by month three and 90 percent of infants by four months of age). It oftentimes stops as mysteriously as it began.

Until that time, it will be difficult and will try your patience over and over again. Take heart -- the time will go by quicker than you realize. It really is, as they say, "just a phase."

Some strategies that the whole family can try to deal with a colicky baby include comforting, coping, and dietary strategies (see Colic Treatment).

Keeping a written log of the crying may also help you and your healthcare provider develop a plan to best manage colic. You may also discover some correlations that you had previously not recognized.

Does Food Affect Colic?

There does not appear to be any impact on an infant developing colic based on whether they are breastfed or bottle-fed.

Coping With Colic

Parents with a colicky baby likely will feel a number of different emotions, including frustration, anger, helplessness, and depression.

No one will ever question the challenges of dealing with a colicky baby. What you have to do as parents is realize that your infant is not crying on purpose or trying to manipulate you. In fact, they are incapable of doing much of anything intentionally at this point in their young life.

If it ever becomes too much:

Share the time spent comforting the crying baby with your partner
Accept the offer expressed by friends, neighbors, or family members to help
Take that time to regroup -- it will go a long way -- and every extra bit helps
Step away.

Are There Long-Term Effects?

The long-term impact of a baby with colic is not exactly known. Researchers have looked at sleep patterns, medical conditions, development, and the parent-child relationship later in life to see if babies with colic show any difference with babies who did not have it. No significant relationship between colic and these factors has been demonstrated later in life.