Your colicky baby may start complaining of headaches down the road. A new French study finds children with migraine may be three times more likely to have experienced colic as an infant.
Dr. A. David Rothner did not take part in the study but treats pediatric headache patients at Cleveland Clinic. "They compared this group of migraine teenagers to a group of tension-type headache teenagers, and low and behold, the frequency of colic was higher in the migraine group, but not in higher in the tension-type headache.
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Paris researchers studied more than 200 children and adolescents 6 to 18 years old. They found more than 70 percent of kids diagnosed as having migraines also experienced colic as an infant compared to 26 percent of kids without migraine.
And if a child has parents who are migraine sufferers the likelihood of colic increased. Researchers say more studies are needed to solidify the link between colic and migraine.
Dr. Rothner says parents should not hesitate to take their colicky baby to the pediatrician or rule out migraine. "If you are a parent whose child is suffering from severe colic: irritability at least 3 hours per day. Irritability at least 3 days a week, irritability for at least 3 weeks where you walk the baby back and forth and you can't get that baby to sleep,. This is an idea that that child may have migraine."
Complete findings for this study are in the Journal of the American Medical Association.