Book Review Why Is My Baby Crying

The new MOPS year started up again yesterday. (MOPS stands for Mothers of Preschoolers, a group to which I have a lifetime membership. A great organization; look them up at MOPS.com) It was babies, babies, everywhere. I've never had a colicky baby, thankfully (and miraculously, I might add) but seeing all those babies yesterday brought this book review I did for Memphis Parent in the fall of 2005 to mind.





Book Review: Why is My Baby Crying? by Dr. Barry Lester


It is estimated that some 20 percent or 800,000 of American born babies this year will have the symptoms of colic. But what are those symptoms and how are they best treated? Dr. Barry Lester, author of Why Is My Baby Crying? and founder of The Colic Clinic in Providence, Rhode Island, shares his latest research.

What led you to start The Colic Clinic?
My colleagues and I were studying crying and colic and, of course, in the process giving parents advice. I found myself caught between the two worlds of trying to do research, where you can’t really focus on treating the individual, and providing services. When we split the two components apart, creating a research program and a clinical service led us to start The Colic Clinic. It is part of the Infant Development Center (www.infantdevelopment.org) at Women & Infants Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, and also part of the Brown Medical School.

What are some of the goals of The Colic Clinic?
Our goal here at The Colic Clinic is not only to treat the colicky infant, but also the entire family. First, for instance, parents need to know there are other families out there with colicky babies. Second, it is hard for parents to take care of their babies when their own needs are not being met. And we can’t forget the siblings, as colic really pervades the whole family. In fact, it is typical for everyone except baby with colic to be overlooked.

What are some of the ways you assess colic?
We begin with an assessment of the infant by using a colic symptom checklist, which tells us if there are other colic symptoms in addition to the baby’s crying. Also, we have the mother fill out diary to keep track of baby’s crying for several days. This allows us to target peaks and dips in crying times, offering the mother a clearer view of the situation. We also like to take some time to find out what is going on with the parents, as what we’ve seen is about 45% of the mothers who bring their babies to clinic suffer from depression. For this reason, all our patients are seen by pediatrician and mental health worker.


Name some of the misconceptions about crying babies.
There are many: colic is normal; it is due to inadequate mothering; parents are responsible; just ignore it and it will go away; it’s genetic; it has no impact. The list goes on and on. While crying is certainly part of normal development, the real issue is whether or not the crying has become problematic—either with the baby’s development or with the family’s well being. Understanding colic is so important because since it is the first disturbance where parenting is concerned, it will influence how you deal with the next problem, and the next, and so on, essentially creating a template for how you deal with future interactions with your child.

Discuss what it means to be crylingual.
When you understand how something works, you begin to feel more comfortable with it because it is less of a mystery. Becoming crylingual means that you come to understand your baby’s cry. Since crying is the baby’s first language, it is a parent’s job to learn that language. At The Colic Clinic, we study the cry primarily thru the sound, or the acoustics, of the cry. When the colic cry resembles a pain cry, for instance, that lets us know that the source of the crying is something coming from the child. A baby who is hungry will have a very different cry than a baby who is in pain.

Talk about a safe cry zone.
There’s a newsletter that about preventing child abuse that says, “Caring for your baby is not about stopping the crying. Caring for your baby is about coping with the crying.” Constant crying can result in failed infant-parent relationships, the ultimate failure of which is child abuse. Building a safe cry zone means knowing your own internal warning signs and triggers. If you can figure out your internal signs, you can forecast and then short circuit the process and prevent yourself from getting to a place you don’t want to be. Negative reactions are normal with colicky babies. Finding a safe cry zone helps legitimize and normalize these kinds of feelings. We like to help get parents of the hook so they can get on with job of parenting.

The Colic Clinic
Infant Development Center
Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island
101 Dudley Street
Providence, RI 02905-2499

Phone 401-453-7640
Fax 401-453-7646
www.colic-baby.com

For more information about research, clinical services or training/education: Barry_Lester@Brown.edu