Colic

The right diet is the key to managing many diseases and to improving general quality of life. For this condition, scientific research has found benefit in the following healthy eating tips.

• Elimination Diet

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  If you breast-feed, work with a knowledgeable healthcare practitioner to see if certain foods you eat may be triggering symptoms of colic in your baby

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  Elimination Diet

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  Allergies may be responsible for colic in some infants.^19,20 If the child is fed with formula, the problem may be an intolerance to milk proteins from a cows’ milk-based formula.²¹ Switching to a soy formula may ease colic in such cases.²² Infants who are sensitive to both milk and soy may be given a hypoallergenic formula containing extensively hydrolyzed proteins. However, some children are sensitive even to these formulas.

  If a baby is breast-fed, certain foods in the mother’s diet may provoke an allergic reaction in the baby. Cows’ milk consumed by a breast-feeding mother has been shown in some,²³ but not all,²⁴ studies to trigger colic. Cows’ milk proteins, which may trigger allergic reactions, have been found at higher levels in milk from breast-feeding mothers with colicky infants than in milk from mothers with non-colicky infants.²⁵ Changing to a low-allergenic formula or restricting the mother’s diet to exclude certain allergy-triggering foods significantly reduced colic symptoms in the infants in one double-blind trial. ²⁶ A healthcare provider can help determine which foods eaten by breast-feeding mothers may be contributing to colic.

• Nondairy Infant Formula

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  Cow’s milk formula may cause colic in some infants, try switching to soy or a hypoallergenic product. Some infants also respond well to an amino acid-based formula.

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  Nondairy Infant Formula

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  A true food protein intolerance in infants may result in persistent distress attributed to irritation of the esophagus caused by reflux (partial spitting up). These infants may respond to an amino acid-based formula. In a clinical trial, infants who were intolerant of soy and extensively hydrolyzed formula, and who had failed to respond to various formula changes, were switched to an amino-acid formula (Neocate).²⁷ After two weeks, all the infants receiving the amino acid-based formula showed less distressed behavior and fewer symptoms of reflux.