Digestive System Problems

Some babies are eager feeders from the word go. They drain their first bottle dry or go to work on the breast as if they'd been coached while they were still in the womb. But the majority of newborns take their first few feedings with little or no interest. Some of them don't want to feed at all. They hang up the DO NOT DISTURB sign.

Don't take this personally.
Your baby doesn't need to feed. Every newborn's body is composed of 79 percent water. By the time the baby is ten days old, she's down to 74 percent water. We assume that she's simply using up the superabundance of water that nature provided to tide her over her first few days until Mother's breast milk comes in, or the formula delivery arrives, whichever the case may be.
If your full-term, healthy baby prefers to live off her surplus water for the first few days and is all right in every other regard, don't be discouraged.

Don't try to stimulate her, pinch her heels, immerse her in ice water, or force-feed in any way. Let her sleep. How would you like it if somebody woke you up out of a deep sleep and decided that what you really wanted was a chicken burrito and an egg cream?
Use the time instead to count her fingers and toes. Take off her clothes, put her on your chest, and feed her with your love. When she gets hungry, she will want to be fed. Isn't she bright?


Colic is the Tower of Babel in pediatrics. Every pediatric specialty speaking its own tongue has its own idea about what causes colic. Pediatric allergists believe that colic comes from cow milk allergy, while the endocrinologists suggest that it comes from the mother's hormones. Pediatric gas t roe necrologists contend an immaturity of the baby's intestines causes it, and pediatric psychiatrists that it's the baby's response to stress and tension. When the specialty of pediatric aerospace medicine is launched, I have no doubt that its practitioners will suggest that colic comes from outer space.
For the life of me, I don't know why every specialty claims to know what causes colic. None of them has an effective treatment, and you'd think that, given the lack of solid information or convincing arguments, they'd all keep quiet when the subject comes up.
Doctors don't even agree on what colic actually is. From its name, you would imagine that it had something to do with the colon. And, actually, when the term colic is used in its narrowest sense, it refers to the crampy, abdominal pain that some babies get while they eat. When used in a wider sense, it extends to excessive, cyclic crying of any type and from any cause; and finally, the term widens out to the horizons when the word excessive is scratched.
How can we recognize a "typical baby with colic"?
Charles Darwin described colic almost 100 years ago as "infants' . . . utter violent and prolonged screams. Whilst thus screaming, their eyes are firmly closed so that the skin round them is wrinkled and the forehead contracted into a frown. The mouth is widely opened . . . so as to assume a squarish form. The breath is inhaled spasmodically." That picture is still pretty good and can be completed by adding that the legs are either drawn up to the belly or forcefully stretched out, and the infant emits the sounds of passing wind. How often do we see this picture, and how often is the baby going through just regular cyclic fussing?
In the first place, since seven out of eight normal healthy babies have regular crying periods, you must assume that regular periods of crying are normal. Some people even suggest that crying serves a purpose, like blowing off steam.

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