The impact of persistent crying and colic
Most of us know personally, through our own experiences or that of friends and family, the negative impact of persistent crying and colic in a baby can have on the whole family.
Firstly, the baby is distressed. Sleep deprivation and persistent crying has a significant, detrimental impact on a baby’s nervous system.
Nicky Bateman says
“I’ve seen first hand the worry, anxiety and sheer exhaustion that a parent has to cope with when they have tried unsuccessfully to calm their baby. Babies cry for different reasons and it’s sadly common that a healthy baby persistently cries in the first few months of life. One primary cause can be that they are physically uncomfortable and reacting to the strains in their bodies, often generated through birth. These tensions can over stimulate the nervous system, pump out more stress hormones, Cortisol and Adrenaline, which then over stimulate the stress response i.e. fight or flight. This cycle of response can become embedded in a baby’s neurology from a young age and therefore anything which helps to soothe or relax an infant in the first few months of life is a really positive intervention.”
Secondly, the impact goes beyond the baby. It can cause extreme distress for the parents and other family members. The mental health of parents & carers diminishes rapidly when they have a persistently crying baby, contributing to postnatal depression in 1 in 7 mothers & 1 in 10 fathers/co-parents 2.
Nicky says ”I know that what I do as a Chiropractor and Craniosacral Therapist really helps both these babies and their whole family. Parents, especially birth mothers, are neurologically hardwired to respond to baby’s cues, such as crying. Therefore, it becomes extremely distressing and disruptive emotionally, mentally and physically when your baby doesn’t settle easily.”
These are just a few of the reasons Nicky sought a solution for a persistent crying. Knowing her clinical expertise helped solve the problem, led her to develop a natural solution that works with the human body and importantly, that all parents could access and use at home, the Qudo Soother
Parents obviously want to help their baby and purchase multiple products, over the counter colic relief and other medications in a bid to help their baby – but medical professionals don’t recommend using most of them. It was estimated in 2015 that the cost of infant crying and sleeping problems in their first 12 weeks of life, cost the NHS over £186M annually, with no evidence of benefit to the child4. The problem is huge.
The Qudo SootherTM will be launched in Summer 2022 following a crowdfunding campaign in January 2022.
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Sources:
1: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27422707/
2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519070/
https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/post-natal-depression/overview/
3. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31058351/
4. Evidence-Based Chiropractic Care for Infants, Joyce Miller – https://chiro.org/Conditions/Efficacy_of_Chiropractic_Manual_Therapy.shtml
5. https://www.askdrsears.com/topics/health-concerns/fussy-baby/science-excessive-crying-harmful/
17 January 2022
