Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Bases for maternal perceptions of infant crying and colic behaviour.

1996; BMJ; Volume: 75; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1136/adc.75.5.375

1468-2044

Ian St James‐Roberts, Susan Conroy, Katie Wilsher,

Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior

According to the commonest definition, infant colic is distinguished by crying which is 9paroxysmal9-that is, intense and different in type from normal fussing and crying. To test this, maternal reports of the distress type of 67 infants whose fuss/crying usually exceeded three hours a day (9persistent criers9) were scrutinised using 24 hour audiorecordings of the infants9 distressed vocalisation. 9Moderate criers9 (n = 55) and 9evening criers9 (n = 38) were also assessed. Most of the distress in all three groups was fussing. In the audiorecordings the persistent criers showed a higher crying: fussing ratio than the moderate criers, but intense crying was rare. A third of the persistent criers were reported by their mothers to have occasional, distinct colic bouts of 9intense, unsoothable crying and other behaviour, perhaps due to stomach or bowel pain.9 In the audiorecordings these periods were longer, but not paroxysmal in onset or more intense than the crying of persistent criers not judged to have colic. The audible features of the crying may be less important than its unpredictable, prolonged, hard to soothe, and unexplained nature.