COLIC IN THE BREAST-FED
While colic is so often seen in the bottle-fed babe, it often occurs in the breast-fed child, and is usually traceable to some error in the mother's diet or to some other maternal nutritional disturbance. One mother who was sure she had eaten nothing outside the diet suggestions she had received, was requested to bring to the office a fresh voiding of her own urine which was found to be highly acid. The administration of an alkaline such as simple baking soda or calcined magnesia to the mother, corrected this acidity, and the colic in the baby entirely disappeared. I recall the case of one mother who ate her dinner in the middle of the day, with a light meal in the evening and thereby stopped the colic in her babe.
Another source of colic in the breast-fed baby is the unclean nipple. The nipples should be washed with soap and water and rinsed in boracic acid solution before each nursing. If the mother worries greatly, or thoughtlessly "gets very angry" just before the nursing hour, there is a substance known as "epinephrin" secreted by the glands located just above the kidneys which is thrown into the blood stream and which raises the blood pressure of the mother and often produces not only colic in the babe, but many times throws him into severe convulsions.