April 7, 2017.
The study is very serious although the subject may make you smile: the researchers asked themselves a question that no one had probably asked before. “Do Italian and German babies cry more than the British? They conducted the survey and studied the crying of more than 8,700 babies in 7 different countries. They then analyzed the results, which appeared in The Journal of Pediatrics.
Who are the babies who cry the most?
The researchers found real differences between countries, even though it would have been natural enough to think that babies all cried in much the same way. Of the seven countries studied, Canadian babies are the heaviest cryers: 34% have unexplained crying periods of more than 3 hours per day. Little Britons (28%) and little Italians (21%) follow. Conversely, it is in Denmark that babies have these seizures the least often, with only 5% of the children studied.
While it might seem normal for a three-month-old baby, like those studied by the researchers, to cry, in reality at that age the average is only 1 hour 10 crying per day as they start. in the first two weeks of life, with 2 hours of crying per day. Crying 3 hours a day at three months is therefore not normal, although researchers do not know where the problem comes from.
Some avenues to study for pediatric researchers
The research carried out by Professor Dieter Wolke has revealed a problem that has so far been little dealt with in the scientific literature. Researchers are making several hypotheses on the origin of these periods of unexplained crying and on their frequency.
While it is possible that this is linked to parents and to parenthood in general, and that therefore crying is of cultural origin, it could also be linked to eating habits that may or may not give rise to problems. more frequent colic.
If pediatricians were able to identify the causes of this crying and the reason for its different frequency in different countries, future parents will undoubtedly thank them.
Paolo Garoscio
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