If your healthy 4-14 week baby has daily screaming bouts often in the late afternoon or evening, and sometimes lasting up to three hours, and if the screaming seems related to abdominal pains, he may have colic. Check it out with your pediatrician. Colic isn't well understood, but we do know some vitally important things. Firstly, colic isn't caused by ill health, and doesn't give rise to illness. Secondly, it never lasts more than three or four months. The pain babies suffer during attacks of colic is thought to be associated with the increase in the strength of peristalsis -- the wavelike muscular activity that sweeps through the intestines. Most of the time, we don't notice peristalsis, and most of the time your baby doesn't either. But when he's having colic, it gets stronger, and he feels it as cramps. We don't know why some babies get colic and most don't, and we don't know why colicky babies suffer at particular times of day. Don't let anyone convince you that it's set off by particular feeding methods or formula, or that it's because you're tense while you're feeding him. If colic had anything to do with feeding, it would happen all the time, not just after one meal. Colic won't do your baby any harm at all, but it's tough on parents.
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