Did you know that the intestines are the only organs that take at least 6 months to grow after birth? The child does not need its intestines in the womb, hence they do not fully develop until after birth. Once born, they need to start functioning – and this is quite often accompanied by cramps. In this blog, I tell you about the signs you can recognise these cramps from and how you can take them into account preventively.
Crying loudly does not always mean cramping
A mistake many parents make is that when their baby cries very loudly they think the baby is always in pain. “Cramps are that,” they often hear others say. “My baby had that too,” said friends. That mistake is made by a lot of people. This is because the ‘cramp cry’ is very similar to the cry in the final stage of fatigue. In other words, it could also just be that your baby is very tired!
If you want to know more about this, you can attend a baby language workshop with me. This will cover the seven most common types of crying, teach you how to recognise them and also help you distinguish them better. After attending this workshop, most people discover the difference between an overtired scream and a ‘cry of pain’, or intestinal cramps. In fact, half of this workshop is about recognising the signs of fatigue. This can make a lot of difference in the case of cramps.
Causes of intestinal cramps
Intestinal cramps are often caused by one of these common causes. The first is peasants. When a baby cannot burp properly, burping can become bubbles in the intestines. Those bubbles will then have to come out in the form of farts. This can cause inconvenience.
The second cause is an allergy, such as to cow’s milk protein. As you can imagine, that also has its impact on the intestines! The last common cause is maternal nutrition. Many women think they don’t need to watch their diet after giving birth, but that’s really not the case. If you are breastfeeding, the baby indirectly gets what you have eaten and drunk through your breast milk. So stay aware of your diet even after giving birth.
What can you do about it?
Above you have already read about some solutions, but you can do more. My main advice is to give a preventive abdominal massage. Here, you don’t so much massage the intestines, but the muscles around them. These, in turn, set the bowels in motion, helping your child use the bowels better. The best time to do this is when they have no cramps yet, or preventive combat. It is also important to give a massage when babies are neither hungry nor tired; when they have just woken up, for example. Do not massage children if they already have cramps! Think about it: would you personally like it if someone touched your belly when you were cramping? For a baby, it is no different.
During the baby massage course, this is covered in detail, and you will also learn how to do it yourself. The abdominal muscles play an important role in this; it is good to ‘train’ them. Indeed, the national sleep advice is to lay babies on their backs. In this passive position, the abdominal muscles are inactive. This can also affect cramps.
So remember: does your child only cry loudly at night? Then it may well be that it is not cramps, but just fatigue. Need help with your baby? Or if you want more how to help your baby please contact me. www.babypraktijkilse.nl/contact