The gripe: an integrative approach to infant colic.

S T m p o p p abies cry. In fact, crying is considered part of normal infant development. Noted psychologist Gwen Gustafson offers this scienific explanation: “Neonatal crying is a pecies-specific behavior which achieves ts likely evolutionary function (infant surival) by reliably eliciting responses from aregivers.” The great behavioral observer harles Darwin described his own baby’s istress in superb biological detail: “With ne of my own infants, from his eighth ay and for some time afterwards, I often bserved that the first sign of a screamingt, when it could be observed coming on radually, was a little frown, owing to the ontraction of the corrugators of the rows; the capillaries of the naked head nd face becoming at the same time redened with blood.” Harvard developentalist T. Berry Brazelton observed that he typical baby cries up to 2.25 hours aily, supporting current speculation that rying, like most things, exists along a pectrum. Yet, there are those babies (and heir families) that seem to suffer more han most; these infants in Darwin’s Enland were said to have “the gripe.” Today e call it colic. We have widely accepted he “Rule of 3s” definition first offered by ediatrician Morris Wessel in 1954. Dr essel, who studied infant crying behavor as part of the Yale Rooming-In Project, efined colic as paroxysmal fussing in inancy for more than three hours per day, at east three days per week, for at least three eeks duration. Surveys indicate that up o 26% of infants are diagnosed with colc, making the condition one of the most ommon reasons for infant visits to priary care practitioners today. We know colic when we see it, but we till do not know what causes it. The most opular conventional medical theory is hat colic is an extreme variant of infant rritability, perhaps related to neural reguation differences. Pediatrician Harvey h