Help for Our "Colicky" Wolfe

About a year ago, we excitedly announced, we were expecting our fifth baby. With each pregnancy, birth, and "4th trimester", we have felt some confidence that comes with it. The "We've done this before" or "We'll figure this out," type of confidence. We had the usual nerves for the cesarean birth and all things following, but for the most part, we felt "ready." Coming home from the hospital was typical. Things were going well but around two weeks of age, things changed. Something didn't seem right and our sweet girl was inconsolable.

Her cry was something we had never experienced. She would go from 0-100 in a second, and turn red. This cry was so different, more of a scream than a newborn cry that would make her lose her breath and most of the time it lasted until she was able to sleep or eat again. Everything we thought we knew to try for a "fussy" baby wasn't working. We were helpless. We tried all the holds, the shushing, the walking, the swaying, the rocking, the swaddling, pick up, put down, bicycle legs, massages, etc. The only thing that had been put in her body was breastmilk. What was this? Was it something I was eating? Nothing worked and our hearts were breaking.

We were very much NOT READY for this. Everything we had done before, was out the window for us and we were walking in new territory. We were not prepared in anyway for colic. John will tell you the newborn phase is not his favorite. He struggles to just sit and snuggle baby because the man has a plan everyday and that plan rarely involves sitting down. He always offered to help but my postpartum mama heart doesn't always allow it (and he knows that).

I may be alone in this but if my baby is crying and I am not the one doing the consoling I get a physical pain in my chest. It's hard for me to watch my crying baby with someone else. Is that weird? Any who, please know if I were to need a break to reset, I'd take up John's offer in a heartbeat. It doesn't feel like a pride thing but rather an attachment thing. Colic is the strongest risk factor for shaken baby syndrome, so please keep baby safe, and take a minute when/if needed.

She consumed all of my time and energy during her first 8 weeks of life and the older kids wanted nothing to do with the noise level that she produced let alone the frequency and length of time. That sibling bond, that we were so excited to witness and nurture, wasn't happening. Those cute pictures of the older kids holding baby were also almost non-existent. There were some days where we felt like we were just passing her back and forth through the cries while the other parent would spend time with the older kids.

There were times where I would hold her and we'd just cry together because I felt so sorry for her. (I don't encourage this because I do believe that children can sense mama's energy/stress, but I needed a release too.)

At the time, I don't think people knew how bad it was (and I wouldn't have expected anyone to) but one of my sisters had texted me and the text said something along the lines of "Sending prayers, Kels, she needs you!" Along with Bible verses, I clung onto that text message everyday. Even when it didn't feel like I was the one she needed, I blocked out that lie, and spoke those words, "God chose me to be her mom, she needs me" over and over.

All that to say, we realized our sweet baby would be labeled colicky.

Colic is usually diagnosed with the 3:3:3 rule.

According to Mayo, colic is defined as crying for three or more hours a day, three or more days a week, for three or more weeks. Features of colic may include the following: Intense crying that may seem more like screaming or an expression of pain. On average, colic usually goes away around 4 months of age but can last up to 6 months. I am not exaggerating when I say, "Some days, I would pray to have a break from colic for just one day. When reading about colic I would find myself saying things like "Three or more days a week, when is our day off? I really think I would have been happy with the screaming for 6 days out of the week versus 7 days.

We approached life one day at a time. John would leave for work, give me a kiss, and reassure me day after day that it would be okay and we'd get through this. And by the grace of God we did!

Looking back, I see how exhausted I was. Sure a little bit of the exhaustion was from lack of sleep but I think I was in a slight fight or flight mode. I was trying my best to research for answers to shield her from any pain and discomfort she was feeling, decide which route we wanted to take, and at the same time, terrified I wasn't "quick enough" to help her, fearful that our baby would suffer the possible consequences of colic. You can look those up if you'd like. On top of the chaos in our home, I was terrified to leave the home, which is not the normal for me. The kids and I venture everywhere together. I felt awful for our older kiddos who could have benefitted from outings but the last thing I wanted to do was to leave the house and have a colic episode happen in public with X amount of time to get back home. It was a very isolating time, which now, knowing what I know, I understand why postpartum depression is more prevalent in women with colicky babes and why moms with colicky babes stop breastfeeding earlier. All that to say, it was hard, but we're not here to just talk about the hard.

We hope by sharing our story parents know they are not alone, they do not have to accept the phrase "they'll grow out of it" and there are so many helpful resources. So, now the good stuff! Here's what we did:

1. I went dairy-free and realized how much dairy our family consumes! I wasn't sure I'd ever eat again--kidding--but it was quite the adjustment. A sweet friend of mine, knew we were on the struggle bus and heard I was going to cut dairy and shortly after showed up with a bag full of dairy free products! It was like a dairy free sample platter so I could figure out what I enjoyed. The ice cream was the best! So blessed by her.

Going dairy free did seem to help a little. If anything, I think it helped decrease baby's mucous but still it wasn't the root cause of the colic, and so the search continued.

2. Nat Phos. Homeopathy Cell Salts Personally, we wanted to try the most natural route possible to start. I know our pediatrician recommends a probiotic and from all of our reading, a lot of people found probiotics to be helpful, but we didn't want to mess with such a pure gut biome if there was another option. That's how we landed on Nat. Phos. I do believe this helped with her acid reflux especially at night-time but again didn't address the root issue. https://www.vitacost.com/hylands-naturals-cell-salt-10-nat-phos-6x?CSRC=BPA-354973409613-bing_pla_pro_catch+all-&network=s&keywordname=&device=m&adid=92700047034133797&matchtype=e&gclick=&ds_agid=58700005161318649&targetid=&msclkid=985b06ae99b71b14073760e79da3899e&gclsrc=ds

3. Regular Chiropractor Appointments with Essence Chiropractic @essenceshealthgroup and Body Work/Stretches that we had learned on our own. We believe the chiropractor helped keep her alignment and calm her nervous system from being in such a fight or flight state but we weren't seeing root cause improvements (which makes sense now knowing what we know). The stretches we were doing benefitted her by loosening the fascia. She was such a tight ball of a baby but again, it wasn't enough.

Some people have great success with colic and chiropractor. I think for us, there was just more going on. However, I also want to say I hope all chiropractors give themselves grace when they can't fix everything or everyone. We don't regret a single appointment. For us, we believe that all the adjustments were beneficial for our girl and even though it may not have addressed the root cause, it was helping her body be as regulated as it could given the circumstances. After doing all the things listed above, I remember saying to John: "Hun, for my own peace of mind, I'm reading a lot about colic and ties and I'd like to have her assessed." John has been with me long enough to trust my momma bear intuition haha! He agreed and was all in so that's what we did next!

4. We had her evaluated by a biological airway dentist at Miboca Dentistry https://mibocadentistry.com/ who then referred us to Dr. Tony Bolamperti for an oral tie release. Miboca was great but we would have been just as happy having her initially evaluated with Dr. Tony Bolamperti at Omaha Laser Dentistry, the same place that would do the lip and tongue release if they deemed necessary. https://omahalaserdentistry.com/

Dr. Bolamperti teaches nation wide on this and maybe even world wide. It's never too late to have someone evaluated but the sooner the better especially if you are having any of the below symptoms. The longer one waits, the more compensating the body does, which leads to more oral development problems and health issues.

Mouth and jaw development is so important for overall health! Can you see in this image how the thickness and the attachment of that front lip tie can cause a gap in the future teeth? Depending on the tightness, it may also be the reason a loved one develops a high palette or a narrow jaw as shown in this picture below. The smaller the jaw palette, the more crowding one will experience and the issues that comes from that.

Another common problem associated with oral ties is mouth breathing. Mouth breathing can cause an abundance of health issues. I am hoping to do a blog post on mouth breathing too...it just so happens both John and I have narrow palettes!

Anywho, back to my point. For my own peace of mind, I wanted to rule out ties.

Sure enough, after the evaluation, she had 4 (of the 5) oral ties that needed released. Who knew we had a total of 5 ties!? Not me!

Our sweet girl had: Labial - Classic Type 4

Mand Lingual - Type 3 posterior and floor of mouth compensation

Both Buccal ties- Type 3 & 4 (the right side was double tethered)

The fascia in our mouth is connected all the way down to our toes, so if it's tight in one area, it can affect the entire body. This also explained the torticollis that we had going on, that the chiropractor couldn't fix. With the tethered oral fascia in her mouth worse on her right side, this tightness in the fascia was what was making her head kink to the right. Think of it like a fish hook in your mouth. It's hard to turn your head to the left when you have that tightness or hook pulling you the other direction. Personally, I wish every baby/person was evaluated for tethered oral tissue (TOTs) at birth or annual dental exam.

5. Last but not least, we scheduled our frenectomy with airway dentist Dr. Tony Bolamperti. He was informative, gentle, and so understanding. I cannot say enough good things about him and his wife, Jen who is a lactation consultant. Dr. Tony has tons of experience with different lasers and will tell you the CO2 Solea Laser is by far the best, most successful, and the gentlest. You can read about it here: https://www.convergentdental.com/blog/my-solea-dental-laser-transformation

What we did not do: Seek out a pediatrician - we LOVE our pediatrician and she is very pro-parent and supportive of all our decisions however, I don't know how well trained she is in diagnosing lip and tongue ties and so we just skipped this step and went right to an airway dentist. Most likely, pediatricians will prescribe a GERD medication and a probiotic and "snip" a lip or tongue tie if they see one. We knew those meds would only mask symptoms, if anything, and if baby were to have any tethered oral tissues, they usually just cut/snip them, which I pray we are learning this is an outdated practice.

***Some people do find relief with probiotics. This is not something we were against, but for us, we wanted to try everything else before we started messing with such a pure and immature gut biome.

I have no idea how our specific pediatrician would handle the colic conversation, so please don't take this as advice to avoid your pediatrician. I'm just stating what I know about how this topic is handled, in general, by some pediatricians.

This was a very hard (sad) time for us but I'm learning hard isn't bad. We gained so much from this! Our kiddos watched how we navigated this hard to try to help her. We gained knowledge and wisdom in doing so and were able to give our sweet baby girl peace; something she didn't know unless she was sleeping. There was a short transition period; some good days and some bad days but she was a totally different baby after the releases. She slept better, I could read her cues better, and she relearned to nurse properly. When we brought her back to the chiropractor a couple days after her release, he even commented on her feeling more "relaxed." There was so much fruit from this and we are forever grateful. If we can somehow help make someone else's colic journey a little less hard, by sharing our story, then we will celebrate that. Thank you for reading along. (P.S. please forgive any grammatical errors. I'm a momma of 5 and I ain't perfect.)