| JWissmille 2004-11-10, 4:08 am |
| http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle....storyID=6677167
REUTERS
Babies' Excessive Crying May Signal Later Problems
Mon Nov 1, 2004 10:15 AM ET
By Charnicia E. Huggins
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Healthy infants older than three months who cry
incessantly for no apparent reason may be at risk for lower IQ and behavior
problems in their childhood years, new study findings suggest.
Such persistent, uncontrollable crying "seems to be a very good indicator of
potential risk," Dr. Malla Rao of the National Institutes of Health in
Bethesda, Maryland, told Reuters Health.
As such, Rao said, parents should not simply "dismiss" their child's crying
as being due to gastrointestinal problems such as heartburn or colic, but
should notify their child's pediatrician.
At younger ages, excessive crying among otherwise healthy babies is usually
described as infantile colic, a common condition that affects up to 40
percent of babies, according to various reports. Although the constant
crying is extremely stressful for mothers and the baby's other caretakers,
colic rarely lasts beyond 12 weeks of age and is not known to impact the
infant's long-term brain development.
Whether the same is true when the crying lasts beyond the age usually
associated with colic is unknown. One team of researchers found that such
unexplained crying that lasted for 6 months was associated with later
hyperactivity among 8- and 10-year old children followed from infancy. Rao
and his team investigated whether such prolonged crying may be associated
with abnormal cognitive development as well.
A total of 561 women were enrolled during their second trimester of
pregnancy. Their children were followed until 5 years of age, with periodic
assessments during infancy and afterwards.
At the six-week assessment, 63 women -- none of whom were anxious first-time
mothers -- reported that their child had experienced colic, or daily
uncontrolled and unexplained crying that lasted two weeks or longer. For 15
of these infants, the same behavior was reported at 13 weeks, beyond the
time frame usually associated with colic.
This prolonged crying after the colic stage was associated with poorer
results on tests that measured cognitive development both in infancy and at
5 years old, Rao and his colleagues report in Archives of Disease in
Childhood.
At 6 months of age, for example, infants with prolonged crying scored nearly
five points lower on an intelligence test than those in the comparison
group, who did not show any signs of colic at any age, and lower than those
whose colic did not persist beyond three months.
At 5 years old, the prolonged criers had lower performance and verbal IQ
scores than the comparison group, and also performed worse on tests
measuring eye-hand coordination, the report indicates. These children were
also more likely to be hyperactive and to have discipline problems than
their peers.
None of the infants with prolonged crying had any brain-related or other
major health problems that may have put them at increased risk for
developmental problems, the researchers note. Also, the home environment of
these infants was not greatly different from the others.
"Thus these findings indicate that prolonged crying itself may be a marker
of subsequent impaired cognitive development," Rao and his team write.
Parents with children who have prolonged crying should "be aware" that there
is a potential for later cognitive problems, Rao said, but they should not
be "overly worried" that their child will have a lower IQ. He advised that
parents should inform their child's doctor so they can together monitor the
child's speech, hearing and other developmental milestones.
It is "safer to follow" the child's development "rather than ignore" the
warning signs, Rao said. "There's no turning back the clock later on in
life."
SOURCE: Archives of Disease in Childhood, November 2004.
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