Letter to the Editor

Prevalence of Infantile Colic at a Secondary Level Hospital

Sir, Infantile colic is a common complaint for which mothers br ing their babies to the pediatricians. The incidence reported in different studies has been between 5-19%. 1 There has been extensive research in the field and reviews from all over the world are available in the literature. 1,2

However, infantile colic remains an ignored entity in Indian literature. Surprisingly there have been no cohort studies evaluating incidence, possible etiological factors and associations, maternal reasons for seeking help, socio- demographic variables neither any reports of successfully using pharmacologica l management . We p lanned to study the prevalence of infantile colic in infants less than 6 months of age brought by mothers with complaints of excessive crying or utilizing services for vaccination and minor complaints in pediatric OPD of a secondary level hospi ta l . The def in i t ion of Wessels that the colic is paroxysms of crying for three or more hours per days per three days or more per week during a period of at least three weeks was used in the study. 3 Anticipating the prevalence of infantile colic among children less than six months to be 10% and absolute precision to be 5% (d= 0.05), the chance of which should be at least 95%, a sample size of 138 was required. Infants with excessive crying due to possible nasal blocks from acute upper respiratory t ract infec t ions were exc luded f rom the s tudy. 150 mothers of infants less than 6 months attending pediatric OPD for vaccination and minor complaints were asked pres t ruc tured questions by the author (a close-ended questionnaire developed and pretested by the author in 10 mothers). The questionnaire was largely based on that used by Crowcroft et al in their study. 4 24 (16%) mothers complained of infantile colic in their infants. 17 (70.8%) infants were bo t t l e - fed and on ly 3 (12.5%) were exclusively breast-fed. 16 (66.7%) were home-delivered, so birth weight records were not available. Only 7 (29%) m o t he r s b u r p e d thei r infants pos t feeds. Deta i led examination revealed otitis media in 3(12.6%) infants.

During the study period 15 mothers specifically attended the OPD for excessive crying of thier infants. Detailed examination and investigations revealed otitis media in 4 and urinary tract infection in 3 infants. All of these infants were top fed. The overall prevalence of infantile colic was 18% (27/150) in the present study. This is similar to that r ep o r t ed in a sys temat ic r e v i e w ) The d i f fe rence of prevalence of infantile colic in the present s tudy and that of Saavedra et al was found to be insignificant (p>0.05). Further studies from India regarding prevalence, family factors, parental attitudes and use of available drugs in management of infantile colic are needed. Contributions: PG conceived and carried out the study; Competing interests: none stated; Funding: none

Acknowledgement

I am thankful to Dr AK Singh, Administrator, Shanti Mangalick Hospital for giving permission to carry out the study. Author also acknowledges help of Dr DN Pandey, PhD, for giving statistical guidance.

Pankaj Garg Shanti Mangalick Hospital,

Agra, Uttar Pradesh E-maih pankajparul8@rediffmail.com

REFERENCES

1. Lucassen PL, Assendelfl WJ, Van Eijk JT, Gubbels JW, Downes AC, Van Geldrop WJ. Systematic review of the occurrence of the infantile colic in the community. Arch Dis Child 2001; 84(5): 398-403

2. Saavedra MA, da Costa JS, Garcias G, Horta BL, Tomasi E, Mendoca R. Infantile colic incidence and associated risk factors: a cohort study. Pediatr (Rio J) 2003; 79(2): 115-122.

3. Sondergaard C, Skajaa E, Henriksen TB. Fetal growth and infantile colic. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed 2000; 83 (1) : F44- 47

4. Crowcroft NS, Strachan DP. The social origins of infantile colic: Questionnaire study covering 76,747 infants. BMJ 1997; 314(7090): 1325-1328.

Indian Journal of Pediatrics, Volume 71--November, 2004 1039