Just Gas? New Study on Colic Suggests Some Longer-Term Implications

Pediatricians commonly are asked to see infants presenting with symptoms of colic. The frequent and intense crying associated with colic is understandably quite distressing to parents, who often worry about a serious underlying medical cause. There also is the stress of trying to soothe an irritable infant who often does not seem to respond to the typical interventions.

Conventional wisdom about colic has been that the behaviors are the result of some gastrointestinal problem that, while not perfectly understood, tends to be mercifully self-limited and not predictive of future medical or mental health problems. This perspective then leads to pediatricians typically offering mainly sympathy and reassurance at these visits.

A new study,^[1] however, challenges some of this traditional thinking. The data come from a remarkable longitudinal study called the Generation R Study (R being Rotterdam in the Netherlands) that has prospectively studied a group of nearly 5,000 children from before birth into adolescence. Colic symptoms were briefly assessed when infants were about 3 months old and emotional-behavioral problems have been prospectively measured at multiple time points subsequently using well-validated rating scales.

The main finding of the study was excessive crying in infancy actually was significantly associated with higher levels of emotional-behavioral problems later in childhood and, to a lesser extent, in adolescence.