Philippa Murphy - BabyCues: Prevent and Remedy Colic, Reflux, Lactose and Dairy Overload--Natures Logical Answers

In the late afternoon to evening the newborn will become agitated. Parents are often told this happens because of a growth spurt and their baby needs more milk or they are told it is a natural occurrence for newborns to be hungrier in the evening hours and therefore they normally cry and scream more.

This advice, and the heightened communication from their baby, has some parents increasing breast or , which again may be misinterpreted as hunger.

In addition to this, when a newborn is not helped to release trapped air in the stomach by for the newborn's digestive system to function naturally.

Most parents know to burp their newborn after each feed, yet the amount of wind that parents are taught to release through burping is nowhere near what is needed to aid a newborn's digestion. Parents sometimes feed baby to sleep or are told they do not need to burp; that retained air does not create discomfort, or that if babies have not burped in ten minutes then they have no more wind. But all of these things are physiologically untrue and detrimental to the baby's digestion and the family's experience.

Each time the newborn is nursed to sleep, they soon become agitated by the excessive wind or overload of waste moving through the intestines, and therefore whimper, cry or scream to be soothed. Finally, exhausted from the crying, lack of sleep, restless bodily responses, and all the feeding and possible refluxing, the bloated newborn falls asleep for a longer period. Baby then wakes, usually crying, rooting and looking to suck either because of discomfort and/or hunger. Parents often ascribe this distress to hunger only and feed. The newborn can look ravenous, sucking hard at this time, gulping down the milk while feeding erratically. This lends more weight to the hunger assumption but newborns will always look to suck and often hard, when they feel uncomfortable in their digestive system.

A couple of burps after the feed and possibly a few spills later, parents try to settle their baby to sleep, sometimes being successful. Often, parents who are sleep deprived take their baby to bed with them. This can happen several times a night, especially when Digestive Overload is at its height. Morning comes, baby is fed again. Parents are exhausted, especially if Mum is breastfeeding and Dad is working or other siblings are involved. A few burps are released and the newborn is put back to bed still feeling overloaded.

During the day, overloading continues with the newborn feeding beyond capacity and in an unbalanced manner, not swallowing enough enzymes and/or not burping to optimum levels. Daytime sleep becomes elusive, erratic or is achieved for only brief periods. As evening approaches, the newborn's digestion reaches a heightened level of overload and they are again very unsettled; grizzling, crying and screaming in discomfort. Sadly, everyone begins the unpleasant night cycle once more, with some newborns reversing night and day sleep habits.

Note: The common cycle described can have a newborn communicating abnormal levels of stress during the day instead of the evening since this depends on the cycle of overloading. Newborns can be experiencing one of the digestive imbalances colic, reflux, lactose or dairy overload while others feel two or all of them simultaneously. This results in varying levels of behaviours and communication which can happen at varying times.

In the first eight weeks before newborns respond more knowingly to their environment the majority of their communication and body movements are related to digestion. All newborns express the same 'cues' or, if you like communication, signs, behaviour or body language. What varies is the degree of communication. This is dependent on the newborn's DNA and how well their digestive process is cared for.

Traditionally, the ingested air a newborn swallows is thought to be bothersome, which, of course, can be true. However, like everything in life, where there is a negative there is also a positive to be found. Mother Nature's gift of ingesting air is no exception. Not only does the intake of air play an immense role in digestion, it also makes a huge contribution to our early physical, mental and emotional capabilities from the first seconds of life, until at least four months of age. Air in a newborn's body is a very powerful instrument of nature.

From the moment of birth, ingested air is the initiator and/or helps to progress these five physiological developments:

• vision
• smiles
• mastication
• first ever controlled arm movements*
• first gooing and gaaing.*

The baby cues associated with the first three of these air initiated developments are:

• vision windy stare*, rolling/fluttering eyes*
• smiles windy smile*
• mastication chewing motion with tongue poking out.*

These Six-Wind-Cues (marked with an asterisk) occur when air sits in the upper regions of the stomach or throat of a newborn. These cues indicate that the air which produced them is ready to be released. When the burp is achieved by using , the babys Wind-Cue disappears, only to return when air once again moves to the upper regions. When a baby is left to communicate any of these Six-Wind-Cues for too long without burping, they will eventually become unsettled. This happens because the retained burp in the upper regions stops the release of other wind that sits in the stomach. The accumulated, retained air is then left to move through the intestines, producing the behaviours of colic and reflux. The degree of these behaviours depends on how digestively overloaded the newborn feels.

Whenever any of the Six-Wind-Cues are present a baby becomes very relaxed in their body and communication. However, there are times when they can show this calmness and readiness to burp and then start pedalling their legs, grizzling or crying. This happens because the newborn simultaneously experiences intestinal or bowel discomfort as we continue you will learn how to recognise and respond to this. By consistently using the calm moments that the Six-Wind-Cues form as the time to release the burp, we teach babies to release their wind in a relaxed manner with only short bursts of unsettled behaviour. This has great benefits for the whole familys physical and emotional well-being.

Once again, these Six-Wind-Cues happen for all newborns, with some happening simultaneously (generally the windy stare, the windy smile and chewing), and many times a day, regardless of whether a baby is experiencing Digestive Overload or not. This early mechanism of ingested air is innate to humans.

The windy stare is present from birth and can be described as a far off gaze to nowhere. Clearly this baby cue helps stimulate the early relationship with light, leading to a newborn absorbing the finer details of their environment and body.

Traditionally this Wind-Cue, like some of the others, has not been recognised as significant. It is often the time when parents do other things because their baby is calm. But, as mentioned earlier, if the baby is left too long with this Wind-Cue, the trapped burp will eventually cause heightened communication which is often misdiagnosed as hunger or tiredness.