Question

Considering that colic places neonates at risk for parental maltreatment, how would you design an education program to prevent such maltreatment?

Answer 1

Colic is the abdominal pain due to certain gastrointestinal tract disease condition like obstruction , inflammation etc . Because the baby has intermittent colic , the parents should not maltreat the baby . It's a natural symptom and is present in almost all babies related to altered digestion or due to some problem in intestine. A systematic analysis of parents perception ,their knowledge and experience, problems they are facing and the level of motivation has to be evaluated before educating them to know how much they know about a newborn care , their interests etc .

First of all parents must be taught about what is colic ? And must be informed that the babies are not crying unnecessarily . Everything has a cause behind it . Demonstrate them how baby reacts to the external stimuli which is causing pain and how the comfort measure relaxes and calms the baby according to the newborn care management. Let them come to know that what causes pain and colic and what are the measures which has to be taken according to the cause and redemonstrate it to the nurse once before they leave the hospital. Also inform the parents that maltreatment of newborn regarding colic might lead to many life threatening complications like abscess ,perforation etc .