Change of mum’s diet eased colic for baby
by Sue Kira, Naturopath & Clinical Nutritionist
Client names and identifying information changed
Michael was born by C-section after a 10hr labour turned into foetal distress. Apart from the birth process, all seemed normal for little Michael, that was until he started to scream in pain every 90 minutes. The only thing that seemed to settle him was being fed, so he constantly needed to be on the breast. Soon after he finished a feed, he fell asleep, and an hour and a half later, he woke again in pain.
Not only was this distressing for poor Michael as mum was distraught and not getting any sleep. A visit to the doctor and the baby health clinic nurse revealed that Michael was quite healthy but had colic. Mum was advised to go to the chemist and get colic drops which contained rhubarb (a laxative), but this did nothing for her baby. The colic went on for several months before Michael’s mum saw me.
I immediately took her off all wind-forming foods plus gluten and dairy as a starting point and within three days Michael was sleeping well for 6hrs at a time (and so was mum).
Foods were slowly re-introduced into the diet but it seemed that all foods originally eliminated gave Michael wind pains. Michael was then put onto some baby probiotics and mum was put onto adult probiotics.
By the time Michael was eating solid foods a couple of months later, he seemed to tolerate most foods well, except for gluten grains and dairy products which gave him dark colouration under his eyes – a sign of allergies affecting the kidneys. Tomatoes also gave him a rash but not wind.
I advised mum not to feed Michael any gluten, dairy or tomatoes until he was two years old to allow his digestive system to mature. Then she could re-look at these foods and if symptoms were still showing, he would need to be tested for allergies and intolerances.
Some kids seem to be ok with foods they couldn’t tolerate when younger, whereas others can have an allergy for life.