PEDIATRICS Vol. 18 No. 5 November 1956, pp. 838-839
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AN ANALYSIS OF ETIOLOGY OF COLIC IN INFANTS

Lawrence Breslow M.D.1

1 Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Illinois School of Medicine.

The subject of so-called "three-months-colic" in infancy can be considered from two major viewpoints. The first, and by far the most popular today, is the emotional or psychosomatic; other papers in this panel consider this in some detail. The second point of view is based on the belief that colic in infants is essentially a manifestation of gastroenterospasm, resulting from overloading the small intestine with disturbing substances. This may be due to a low threshold in a hypertonic (psychosomatic) infant when subjected to an ordinary quantity of poorly tolerated material, or to a normal threshold being exceeded by an abnormal quantity.

With the latter in mind, 90 infants who seemed to have the usual manifestations of colic were studied as to etiology. Five main factors were considered:

1. Poor feeding technique.

2. Hunger.

3. Intolerance to carbohydrate added to the formula.

4. Intolerance to butter fat added to the formula.

5. Intolerance for, or allergy to, cows milk proteins.

After the first 2 factors were eliminated by the usual methods from consideration as a cause of gastroenterospasm, carbohydrate was removed from the formula as completely as possible. In those infants in whom the symptoms disappeared, this procedure was repeated one or more times until there was no question as to the role played by the sugars. If the symptoms failed to be alleviated, the infant was placed on a formula low in, or free of, butter fat.