A heating pad will help get rid of colic in a newborn. Prevention and help with abdominal colic in newborns How to apply a warm diaper to a baby

Colic and bloating often worry babies, especially in the first months of life. The main reason for this illness is that the newborn’s body has not yet adapted and is only getting used to new conditions and new food, elements that enter through breast milk.

In addition, the child’s well-being is affected by incorrect feeding and latching techniques, overfeeding and inappropriate milk formula. also increases colic and abdominal disorders in infants.

If the cause is identified and eliminated, the disease quickly goes away. Statistics show that 90% of newborns have colic. During this period, the baby often cries and is capricious after feeding, bending his legs to his tummy. Sure signs of colic or bloating are bowel dysfunction and increased gas production.

Colic is normal for babies in the first weeks of life. There is no need to worry that there is something wrong with the child or think that the baby is sick. The problem goes away by 3-5 months, in rare cases – by six months. However, you can relieve and even relieve pain by using medications and folk remedies. Let's find out what will help get rid of colic without harming the baby.

10 ways to relieve colic pain in a baby

• Before feeding, place your newborn on a hard surface, tummy down, for 2-4 minutes. And after feeding, hold the baby in an upright position for 10-15 minutes and wait with the baby.
• Massage your baby's tummy in a clockwise circular motion. Regular massage is the best remedy for pain and cramps in the tummy;
• If there is strong crying, take the child in your arms, rock with one hand, and place the other with a warm palm on the tummy;
• During colic, place your newborn on your chest or on your stomach. This calms and relaxes the child, relieves tension, fear and pain;
• The best remedy that has been used since ancient times is a warm diaper. Lay the diaper in two or three layers, iron it and apply it to the tummy. Don't put the diaper on too hot!

• Special gymnastics will help get rid of colic. Tuck your legs toward your stomach, then connect your left knee to your right elbow and vice versa. So the gas workers will immediately move away on their own;
• Place the baby in your arms, tummy down, and rock the baby slightly to the right and left. This exercise is “airplane”. It distracts from pain and calms the child, he stops being capricious and even starts laughing;
• Give your child a warm bath with chamomile infusion added. To prepare a decoction, brew three tablespoons of chamomile in 0.5 liters of boiled water. How to properly organize bathing and swimming for a baby, read;
• If the baby does not calm down for hours, you can use special medications and folk remedies for colic, and in rare cases, a gas tube. However, such methods can only worsen the situation, so before resorting to them in extreme cases and before using, be sure to consult a doctor!;
• It is important for a nursing mother to establish breastfeeding and nutrition. It is important that the baby receives the required amount of milk and swallows air during feeding. Make sure that your diet is correct during lactation.

Traditional methods

Today there are various folk remedies for colic. Be careful when using, as some plants and herbs cause. As a result, colic and bloating in the baby will only increase, and there is a high risk of rashes, redness and itching. To avoid this, use only proven ingredients that your child is not allergic to.

Warm infusions of fennel and lemon balm, chamomile and immortelle, ginger and carrot seeds will also help. But you should not give your baby more than a quarter glass of broth per day! Don't forget about relaxing chamomile baths.

Pharmacy drugs

If folk remedies do not help and the colic only gets worse, you can turn to medication for help. Before using any medicine, even the most harmless one, be sure to consult a doctor! Read the instructions carefully, look at the composition and expiration date of the drug, contraindications and side effects, methods of use and dosage.

Today, the market offers a lot of different pharmaceutical drugs to eliminate colic and relieve bloating in newborns. These are drops and capsules, suspensions and powders, ready-made solutions and other types. But how to choose the best product? Let's look at and compare the most popular and effective medications for babies.

Don't forget that every child is individual. Determining which medicine is right for your baby is quite difficult. Consultation with a doctor will help you choose the best remedy, taking into account the developmental characteristics of the baby and the degree of exacerbation of the problem. And remember that doctors recommend taking medications only in absolutely necessary cases.

If the baby is on mixed or artificial feeding, it is possible that colic and stomach upsets are caused by incorrectly selected milk formula. Today, manufacturers offer various types of formula, including hypoallergenic, lactose-free, soy and goat milk based. If your baby has severe colic, increased gas production and bloating, try replacing the formula.

Today on the website for mothers there is a story from our reader about whether it is necessary to swaddle newborns and how to treat colic.

Since childhood, I had an ironclad idea about babies that for the first three months they sleep around the clock. This happened to all my friends and relatives.

She grew up and got married. And now we are expecting a baby. I am happy. I tell my husband:

— For the first three months he will sleep constantly, I will have time to do everything.

He agrees with me, his child from his first marriage also slept all the time in the first months of his life.

And then we had a wonderful boy. Everything is fine.

The only thing that embarrassed me back in the maternity hospital was that he raised his hands, shuddered and woke up. The nurse said that it was he who was afraid of his hands; he just needed to put diapers on his hands. They put him down, it didn’t help, he could easily lift his arms along with the diaper. The baby woke up often.

We were discharged, a week passed. No improvement in sleep. I had to pick him up and rock him, put him in the crib, and he wakes up right away. As a result, I slept on my arms all day. He doesn’t sleep at night either, hanging from his arms. I’m in despair - I just can’t understand what’s wrong, why he’s not sleeping.

One morning I firmly told my husband:

- My son will sleep with me. He wants to feel his mother, he’s probably the only one who’s afraid.

The husband objected and said it was wrong for a child to sleep in his own crib. After much persuasion, he agreed. And a miracle happened. I didn't have to get up once the entire night. He slept peacefully next to me and nursed almost all night. After we started sleeping together, there wasn't a single sleepless night. The whole family slept like babies.

But I still had to carry him in my arms all day. And that was just the beginning of the suffering...

One evening he began to cry heavily and inconsolably, crying incessantly for three hours. We tried everything - nothing helped. So they understood nothing and came to nothing.

Two days later, I started crying a lot again in the evening. At this point I was already scared. We called our doctor. She said this is a normal phenomenon, called . All babies under three months cry. A day later, this heartbreaking cry was repeated again. For three hours he cried and cried incessantly, did not take the breast, nothing distracted him, absolutely nothing helped...

I decided to study this issue on the internet. Yes, indeed, there is such a phenomenon - colic. But this is a normal phenomenon that does not harm the child. One of the versions is the imperfection of the digestive system.

How to treat colic is not known for certain. My diet did not help; my husband categorically forbade switching the child from breast milk to formula.

Our life has turned into a nightmare. Every second we were in fear, despair, stress, hopelessness.

We only rested late at night, since I carried him in my arms all day, in the evening until eleven he cried, and so on every day.

But we found the method that helped us is and by four months the baby stopped crying.

I began to think why my baby had colic, and all the children I knew before did not have colic. Pictures were spinning in my head of what the babies looked like, sleeping all the time. And what my son looked like, who hardly slept and suffered from colic.

There was a difference. Every single one of these children who did not suffer from colic was in diapers, but mine was dressed in clothes from birth. That was the only difference.

I remembered how my mother-in-law watched me dress my son, and said with regret:
- How good for you, now what clothes you want to eat for newborns. In our time there was nothing like that, only diapers. All .

Before giving birth, the doctor gave a mandatory list to the maternity hospital. This list included various items of clothing and only a couple of diapers. When the baby was born, I didn’t immediately swaddle him, but dressed him. My husband wanted to swaddle him, but the doctor forbade him and said:

“He’s uncomfortable in diapers.” Without diapers, he can lie down the way he likes. Previously, they didn’t understand anything, they swaddled me.

We obeyed.

We have stopped swaddling our babies because we think they are uncomfortable. Yes, for us adults it’s scary to be in a straitjacket. But just as we feel in a straitjacket, a newborn feels the same way without diapers.

We have never been in space; the position of weightlessness is alien to our body. Likewise, freedom of movement is alien to the body of a newborn. His whole life is his tummy, this cramped position in the womb. He still cannot imagine himself outside of this position.

The body of a newborn needs to be prepared for freedom - swaddled. When we bathe him, change his diapers, he already feels freedom, little by little he gets used to it. The baby experiences a smooth transition from one position to a completely different one. From birth, a baby cannot lie down like we do, as he pleases, because neither his arms, nor his legs, much less his body, obey him. He can't control the handles, so they constantly get in his way.

I agree with my mother-in-law and my mother. Children just can't cry. He cried because he was cold without diapers. A newborn cannot retain heat, but diapers, forming a shell, help him with this. When he slept with me at night, he felt warm and cozy.

It is in the embryonic state that he is at first comfortable. And this state is provided by diapers; he feels familiar, cozy, and warm in them.

And the most important thing is why a child cries - he does not get enough sleep. Deep, long, complete sleep is necessary for a newborn, like breathing. Milk and sleep are the only things a baby needs in the first months of life.

If a child sleeps all day, he will not cry in the evening. But he won’t be able to sleep fully if he feels uncomfortable, cold, or scared.

Women swaddled because it was passed down from generation to generation. They did it intuitively, without even thinking.
Some write that their child cried even in diapers. I agree, if you don’t swaddle from the first days, then it doesn’t help. You need to be swaddled from birth.

Some write that from birth a child cries in diapers, but does not cry without diapers. These are, of course, amazing children. Therefore, to take risks and not swaddle or not to take risks and swaddle, of course, everyone decides for themselves.

About the diet, I will say that this is complete nonsense. In the post-war period, they ate everything they could eat, and there were no colics. It is not wise to limit yourself in nutrition when your baby needs all the vitamins.

I am very glad that we did not switch to artificial feeding. When artificially feeding, you need to follow a strict diet, if you feed him a mixture randomly, it will harm his health. When breastfeeding, you feed on demand, without fear of anything; mother's milk cannot harm you.

At the moment we are eight months old, we are absolutely healthy both mentally and physically. We are recruiting well and growing.

I’m sharing the methods that helped us, maybe it will help someone else too.

• When the baby starts crying, do not breastfeed under any circumstances. We give the baby to rocking to dad or someone else. Make sure to rock it vertically. He will cry and cry for about an hour, maybe more, maybe less, then he will start rubbing his eyes. And at this moment we take the child, give him the breast and rock him in our arms.
• When the child has fallen asleep, you cannot put him in bed; he will wake up immediately. We act like this: first we stand with our knees on the bed, still holding the child as we were holding. Then we sit down, the baby remains in the same position. We lie down with him, without lifting our breasts, and remove our hand from under his head. And we lie with him until we are sure that the child is fast asleep. We take out the breast and make sure to turn the baby onto his tummy. If he’s on his back, he’ll wake up in about fifteen minutes, or even earlier. And that's all - if you're lucky, he'll sleep until the morning.
• From time to time we go and see how the child sleeps, because I don’t know whether it’s true or not that sleeping on the stomach is one of the causes of sudden infant death. Clarification: without a dad or a significant other, this method does not work.
• We create a shell out of the blanket, slightly insert the blanket under the tummy on both sides, under the legs, so that the warmth is retained. And he will be warm.

The main thing is not to breastfeed prematurely and try to ensure that the baby sleeps at least every hour during the day.

Infant colic is an accumulation of gases in the tummy of a baby. A large accumulation of gases causes spasms, which cause pain and anxiety to the child. The child's body adapts to a new life outside the womb. If previously the child received food through the umbilical cord, now he has to work hard to get enough. And along with food, be it breast milk or formula, new bacteria colonize the body. Accordingly, other food will be digested differently. It gets to the point that every mother visits the forum to find out answers to questions about colic. Should I give medications to relieve gas? The baby is suffering, and the mother is worried and wants to help him fart.

Colic and gas in newborns: why do they appear, how to understand that it is colic, how do they manifest themselves in a month-old baby?

• Formation of the gastrointestinal tract. Bloating in newborns can occur due to the fact that the baby's gastrointestinal tract is still developing and has not yet fully formed.
• Attaching to the breast. Perhaps colic in infants occurs due to improper attachment of the baby to the breast. The baby may not latch onto the breast correctly and may swallow air along with the milk during feeding. Because of this, bloating occurs and, as a result, intestinal colic.
• The character of the child. There is a possibility that the newborn has a tummy ache because he cried, screamed, became overexcited, or swallowed air. There are babies who cry a little and do not require attention, but there are children with character, so the cause of colic can be the child’s special temperament.
• Mom's nutrition.
• If your baby is breastfed, then you should know what it is. Infants may have colic due to poor nutrition. Baby formula.
• If the child is bottle-fed, then it may make sense to change the formula or once again make sure that it is prepared correctly. Feeding regimen.

Try to exclude the possibility of colic due to non-compliance with the feeding regime. Here the opinions of pediatricians differ. Some people continue to believe that feeding should be strictly according to the schedule (an interval of at least three hours), because the food does not have time to be digested in a short time and disorders appear in the gastrointestinal tract. Others consider this belief to be “a thing of the past” and suggest feeding “on demand.” What is right for your baby is up to you to decide. But if nothing helps, you can still experiment for one day.

• Colic in a newborn: symptoms and signs
• The baby cries and curls his toes and hands, pulls his knees to his tummy, sleeps and cries.
• The baby cries loudly and his face turns red.
• The abdomen becomes bloated and rumbling can be heard. After the gases have gone away, the child calms down.
• Colic in babies can begin around the tenth day of life and last up to three to four months.
• Usually, with colic, the baby's stool is regular and without changes.

Colic occurs more often in babies who quickly gain weight.

10 tips on how to relieve pain for a colicky child at home. Treat or wait for a miracle

1. Rub your belly clockwise around your navel.
2. Place your warm palm on your tummy and lightly rock with your other hand.
3. Attach your baby to your breast during colic. This will allow him to relax and relieve cramps.
4. Place a warm diaper on your tummy. It should be folded in several layers and ironed. If the diaper turns out to be hot, then place it on top of the vest, and when it starts to cool down, apply it to your bare tummy.
5. Place your baby on your stomach. Your baby will be very pleased to sleep on your stomach. When mom is nearby, children always sleep sweetly.
6. Do gymnastics: press your knees towards your tummy, this will create a natural massaging of the abdominal cavity. Connect your right knee to your left elbow and vice versa, and so on several times. Gas trucks will immediately begin to leave on their own.
7. Rock your child in the tiger-on-a-branch position. This position is more suitable for dads who have strong arms. Bend your arm at the elbow and place the baby on it, belly down, with the head on the palm of your hand. In this position, you can not only alleviate the child’s condition, but also wear it at normal times. For many dads, this is their favorite walking position.
8. Make an “airplane”: place the child in your arms with his stomach down and swing him slightly to the right and then to the left. Many children begin to squeal with joy and laugh for the first time during this exercise. By the way, you can always do this when a child starts to act up.
9. If your child likes to swim, give him a warm bath with chamomile brewed in a water bath (three tablespoons of flowers per half liter of water). This will help relieve pain from colic and gas in newborns. The pain goes away.
10. Gas outlet pipe. We deliberately talk about it last. Yes, it helps to get rid of gas, but you should not overuse it, otherwise the baby will quickly get used to it, and you will no longer be able to do without this tube. The child will not want to deal with the problem himself, and besides, this is unnecessary irritation of the anus. For those who, on the advice of pediatricians, decided to fight colic in infants using a gas outlet tube: lubricate the tip with Vaseline or baby cream and carefully insert the tube into the anus, but no more than 2 cm. If the child shows the slightest resistance, stop this activity. Be aware that such interference may cause diffraction.

Use our tips and you will definitely be able to relieve your baby’s pain with colic!

• what medications do doctors usually prescribe for colic in newborns?
• 7 tips for preventing colic,
• and also if it’s not colic, then what?