Written by admin on 2009-04-20T12:16:41+0000">April 20, 2009 – 12:16 pm
‘We in the West regard infant crying as normal, and in a thousand different ways condition our children to associate babies with bawling. But in societies where infants are exclusively breast-fed from birth and in contact with their non-allergic, non-food-bingeing, non-smoking mothers, “colic” is unknown and infant crying is seen as a sign of distress, which warrants immediate attention. And that is exactly what it sounds like to the new mother, until she is persuaded by others, against every instinct she possesses, that this is “normal” or “naughty”… Crying, colic and night-waking are only a tiny portion of the range of symptoms which experienced mothers report as disappearing and reappearing with dietary changes – changes in maternal diet for the breastfeeding mother, or changes in infant diet directly. These symptoms range from minor oddities to serious problems. In the series of mothers followed up, those who consistently reported the minor symptoms were regarded as neurotic or overprotective. Yet these same mothers found that over months there was often a gradual increase in the severity of symptoms .. The question should be asked, would the serious symptoms ever have appeared had the mother identified and avoided the dietary allergen responsible? Mothers were almost never taken seriously until the child had gross symptoms … Maternal anxiety is an appropriate response to the experience of living with a crying Baby – but what physiological mechanism exists to explain the notion that anxiety causes colic? In my experience, babies are remarkably placid through all sorts of family rows, so long as they are warm and well fed; while they will infallibly disrupt the most harmonious scene if they have a pain.’ (Food for Thought, Maureen Minchin.)
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