Colic

In his 1985 review, Illingworth identified a Punjabi word for infant colic, noting that it was recognized in India, where it was considered to be due to the evening gods. In contrast, many anecdotal accounts have suggested that babies in non-Western cultures hardly cry at all, and attribute this to the almost continuous holding, frequent breast-feeding, and rapid response to babies' cries in such cultures (referred to as proximal care). Overall, the empirical evidence from non-Western cultures is not adequate to resolve this issue. There is clear evidence of a difference in amounts infants cry inbetween African cultures which employ proximal, compared to more distal care (Hewlett et al. 2000). However, the study involved infants over three months of age, by which age colic is usually over, and crying has reduced, in Western infants. Other studies have certainly indicated that non-Western infants cry less in the first three months (Barr et al. 1991; Lee 2000), but this finding requires clarification and it is uncertain whether it reflects care differences or other factors. Attempts to introduce aspects of proximal care, such as supplementary carrying, into Western families have not produced reliable benefits (St. James-Roberts et al. 1995).

Since infants often do stop crying when responded to, it is reasonable to suppose that proximal care is associated with somewhat reduced crying, but whether or not it prevents the bouts of prolonged, unexplained, and "unsoothable" crying in one- to three-month-old infants that trouble Western parents is not yet known.

Some babies in their first three months cry for prolonged amounts of time without apparent reason. In Western societies this phenomenon has come to be known as colic. LAURA DWIGHT/CORBIS