colic

colic
Saturday October 06, 2007

Dear Dr. Miller,

I am very glad to have found this website and am reading with interest and appreciation. However, I was disturbed by the notion that all colic is a baby’s reaction to lack of love and cruel treatment. My first baby, my daughter, had terrible colic from one week old until she was three months – but I and her father loved her very much. I was told by doctors not to worry because “babies don’t really feel pain”, but I knew she was suffering and, when walking up and down with her, would tell her that even though I couldn’t take away the pain, I would always be there with her, so that she wouldn’t suffer it alone. And I always tried to keep that promise. She is grown up now and I think she feels she was loved and valued as a child. There is love and warmth between us. Some of us, even with unhappy childhoods, do grow up to forge good relationships with our children. My daughter’s colic was, I think, the result of a drug I was given during labour, to speed up contractions.

Best wishes, R.

AM: What you write makes much sense; you don’t need to worry if the relationship turned out to be so good. It is also possible that her birth reawakened some sad memories in you from YOUR birth that you succeeded to overcome after she was 3 months old.