colicy baby

I have a 5 week old baby girl and she cries uncontrollably, she screams and cries for almost 5-6 hours every night. I am really concerned and dont know how to deal with the situation. We have seen the paediatrician 5-6 times for the same reason but no satisfactory result yet. We have tried changing forumla, gave zantac but nothing seems to work . Only thing that seems to comfort her a little bit ( last two nights even this didnt work - ) was carrying her on arm- belly pressed against arm.I have few questions -
1) How do I know if its acid reflux or colic?
2) Does crying for so long nonstop cause any health problems for the baby? I am very tensed about this thing because I was told it could be colic and it goes away and all that, but what happens to the baby if she goes on crying nonstop for such a long time?????Does here speech or voice get affected or breathing affected?????

Please help, any advice appreciated...thanks!
puns

I too agree that a big problem with either colic or reflux is milk protein intolerence and would suggest to go dairy free for a month to see if it helps, or to use Nan HA formula.

If she is screaming, then it may be reflux, the other symptoms of relfux would be not wanting to feed or latch on properly, feeding all the time, arching the back, congestion, hiccups, coughing... there are quite a few.

With the zantac if she is only 5 weeks old then I am assuming that you may not have given her enough time to get used to it, all reflux meds should be given at least 2 weeks to see if they work, it sometimes takes a lot longer for some of them to work.

From what you have written I would back it as reflux at this stage, and you could try propping the cot and swaddling her at night, they get used to it eventually and it does help.

Colic is generally only a couple of hours and would be more indicated by them pulling their legs up in pain (whereas reflux is generally a back arch)

Crying non stop does not cause any health problems but it doesn't help as they can get colicky because of it, because as they scream they take in air and this makes it worse.

Good luck, if your ped isn't helping just keep goign until they listen or get a second opinion.

Hi, had any luck yet? My daughter had colic too and we discovered it was the type of bottle we were using. The only ones that work for her are MAM Ultivent bottles which I got from Target. They have a great anti-colic system so no bubbles get in her tummy. They're not expensive and Target have a sale on nursery items just now I think. They were a live saver for us.

Hope it gets better soon. It's so distressing when they're not well. :lol: