Facts about infant crying – time to worry
By F.P. Larson
My previous article (Facts about infant crying – the “healthy reasons”) discussed the normal, not dangerous reasons for infant crying. However, as I stated crying for an infant is communication and your infant will communicate when there it is feeling pain, Note that I will not discuss colic in this article. Actually, you should forget about colic for a while since you might risk your infant’s health if you are ruling out all of the dangerous cases because you think your child has colic.
One important rule: do not act as a pediatrician on your own. Do not determine your child’s diagnose yourself. You are gambling with your child’s health if you are giving diagnoses. Please contact a professional (a physician or other another health provider) if your child has abnormal crying.
So, let us look into some of the reasons for abnormal crying in infants. Note that there might be several reasons that are not mention in this article (I cannot repeat this enough times: contact professional health personnel).
1. Ear infection or ear pain. Usually your child will have fever and diarrhea and/or reflux. You might notice that your infant is trying to pull its ear.
2. Sore Throat. Especially for very young infants, it might be difficult for parents to understand that the child is crying due to sore throat. You will most likely recognize a standard cold (symptoms like for adults) but other reasons for sore throat might be difficult to recognize. However, look for signs like fever, vomiting and poor appetite.
3. Eye infection. Eye infections are quite common for newborns. Look for signs in your child’s eyes (swollen eyes, watering eyes or pus formed from eyes).
The reasons above are the most common, and least dangerous, reasons to contact health personnel. However, an infant can have many other diseases, like heart problems, allergy, asthma, etc. Please contact professional health personnel if your baby is acting abnormal. As I said earlier in this article, some things cannot be repeated or emphases enough times. Here is my conclusion for you:
Contact a doctor if
...your infant is in pain
...your infant has breathing problems
...your infant has fever
...your infant is vomiting
...your infant has diarrhea
...your infant has bad appetite
...your infant has rashes
...you suspect that there is something wrong with your infant
If there is nothing wrong with your child and your doctor has a bad attitude because of your “false alarm”: change doctor. You are allowed to be concerned by your child health. You are obligated to contact professionals if you are afraid that your child is in danger. You are allowed to be wrong. Do not let is stop you from contacting health personnel next time if you were wrong the first time. Your child needs your concern.
Sincerely,
F.P. Larson
Calm Your Screaming Baby About the Author
F.P. Larson is an associate writer for Calm Your Screaming Baby ( http://www.calm-your-screaming-baby.com/ ), a resource site for parents of infants.