Journal of Advances in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation

Abstract

Background: Infantile colic (IC) is a very common disorder in infancy which is a benign, self- limiting condition, however is very worrisome for the parents. In definition, it characterizes by persistent and inconsolable crying occurs in an infant who is usually healthy. The underlying cause of IC still is unclear.

Material and Methods: For determining prevalence, characteristics and risk factors of IC in infancy, a cross-sectional study designed in south of Tehran, capital of Iran. This study has performed in 450 infants. Each one of the infant’s mothers has undergone an interview for filling the pre-structured questionnaire by trained personnel. The questionnaire included the infants’ characteristics such as, age, sex, maternal age, type of consumed milk, time of beginning of supplemental food, the infant delivery type, birth order, gestational age or birth weight, atopy in the infant, history of allergy in the infant’s father, mother or siblings, history of IC in the siblings, maternal age, and education as well as continuous crying or fussiness without any etiology. In infants with IC, the age onset or abate for IC, average duration of each episode, the average frequency of each episode per day, the relation of each episode to infant’s feeding, sleep or burping and the methods have been used for relieving the colic episode have been asked from the infants’ mothers.

Results: The prevalence of IC was 55%. Based on Wessel criteria, 10% of the cases involved with IC. Besides, it occurred in males more than females (58%). 70% of the cases happened in less than 6- month- old infants. 72% of the cases started IC less than 1 month of age and 40% of the colic episodes abated less than 4 months of age. Average duration of each colic episode has taken less than 10 minutes in most of the infants (44%) and average frequency of colic episode mostly occurred less than 3 times per day (60% of cases). Although, coddling was the most effective method for relieving the colic bouts (86%), consuming drugs were effective in 78% of the cases and 23% of the cases didn’t response to any method or drug. History of colic in the siblings was positive in 23% of cases.

Conclusion: Despite most of our findings are in consistent with the results of other research, it sounds that the prevalence of IC is high in our population. With regard to the type of our study and reliance of the data on the mothers’ recall, performing perspective population-based studies with using daily diary notes due to colic episodes in infants highly recommended.