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Cant remember if you registered*Information for Healthcare Professionals only. Breastfeeding is best for babies.
Breastfeeding is best for babies.
Information for Healthcare Professionals only.
Important notice: We believe that breastfeeding is the ideal nutritional start for babies and we fully support the World Health Organisation’s recommendation of exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life followed by the introduction of adequate nutritious complementary foods along with continued breastfeeding up to two years of age. We also recognise that breastfeeding is not always an option for parents. We recommend healthcare professionals to inform parents about the advantages of breastfeeding. If parents consider not to breastfeed, healthcare professionals should inform parents that such a decision can be difficult to reverse and that the introduction of partial bottle-feeding will reduce the supply of breast milk. Parents should consider the social and financial implications of the use of infant formula. As babies grow at different rates, healthcare professionals should advise on the appropriate time for a baby to begin eating complementary foods. Infant formula and complementary foods should always be prepared, used and stored as instructed on the label in order to avoid risks to a baby’s health.
Colic – What’s new and what has stayed the same?
May 2021
New ROME IV Criteria2
The classic definition of infant colic was given in 1954 by Wessel, who described colic in the “Rule of 3’s” – a well-fed, otherwise healthy infant with crying or fussing for more than 3 hours a day, for more than 3 days per week and for more than 3 weeks.1 The modified Wessel’s criteria reduced the duration of symptom to one week when it was realised that it was not practical to ask parents to wait 3 weeks for a diagnosis.1 However, the need to recognise colic as a benign functional condition resulted in it being classified as a functional gastrointestinal disorder (FGID) under the ROME diagnostic criteria.1 The current ROME IV criteria was formulated in 2016 and it considers crying behaviour, which causes distress to parents, rather than the duration of crying.1