Search for what causes colic and the answers pile up fast: gas, food sensitivities, an immature gut, a sensitive temperament, dairy in a nursing mother's diet, or simply something babies grow out of with time. Ask a pediatrician and you may hear that the cause remains a mystery, along with a suggestion to wait it out. None of that is particularly comforting at two in the morning with a baby who has been crying for the third hour straight.
The honest reason these explanations conflict is that colic has been studied mostly from the outside, symptom by symptom, rather than from the nervous system that is coordinating all of it underneath.
What Colic Actually Looks Like
Colic affects about 1 in 4 babies in the first months of life. The generally accepted definition ties back to what's sometimes called the rule of threes: crying that stretches past 3 hours in a single day, shows up on more than 3 days out of the week, and keeps going for beyond 3 straight weeks, in a baby who is otherwise healthy. It tends to start around 2 to 4 weeks old, peak near 6 weeks, and cluster in the evening hours. Along with the crying often comes clenched fists, an arched back, legs pulled toward the belly, a tight or gassy belly, and resistance to the usual soothing techniques.
The Competing Theories
A few explanations get repeated most often, and each one captures a piece of the picture without fully accounting for it:
- Gas and swallowed air: A common assumption, though colicky babies do not actually swallow more air or produce more gas than other infants.
- Food sensitivity or dairy intolerance: True food intolerances in infants are relatively rare, and eliminating dairy from a nursing mother's diet has shown limited effect on crying time in research.
- Immature digestive system: Digestion does mature over the first months of life, which is part of why colic often resolves on its own by 3 to 4 months. But this explains the timeline more than the cause itself.
- Temperament or a fussy baby: This shifts the explanation onto the baby's personality rather than a physical or neurological driver, which does not hold up well against how physical the symptoms actually are.
- Nervous system dysfunction: A newer, less widely discussed view holds that colic is a signal of tension and interference in the developing nervous system, disrupting communication between the brain and digestive organs.
Why the Popular Explanations Fall Short
Most families who eventually look into colic's neurological side have already tried the usual first steps: probiotics, gas drops, gripe water, formula changes, sometimes several in combination. When digestive interventions alone do not resolve the crying, it points toward what some practitioners call neurogenic colic, meaning the tension driving the discomfort originates in the nervous system rather than the gut itself.
What the Nervous System View Actually Explains
When tension builds in a baby's neuromuscular system, particularly around the upper neck and spine, it can disrupt the signaling between the brain and the digestive organs, creating what feels to the baby like a constant storm of unsettled signals. That tension is often traced back to physical stress during pregnancy or birth, whether from a long labor, a vacuum or forceps delivery, or a C-section. Even a birth that looked completely routine from the outside can leave real strain in a newborn's upper spine. We call this buildup of pregnancy, birth, and early-life stress the Perfect Storm, and you can read more about how we think about it on our Perfect Storm page.
This view also explains something the other theories do not: why colic, reflux, and constipation so often show up together in the same baby. They look like three separate digestive complaints, but they frequently trace back to the same underlying signal disruption rather than three unrelated causes.
One More Piece Worth Knowing
Tongue and lip ties, sometimes called tethered oral tissues, have gotten a lot more attention in recent years for their role in latching, swallowing, and digestion. They are worth ruling out, but the deeper question is often why the tension is there in the first place. If underlying nervous system tension is not addressed, some babies continue to struggle even after a tie is corrected.
Why the Disagreement Itself Matters
Part of what makes this disagreement so frustrating for families is that each camp is defending a real, if partial, piece of evidence. The pediatrician who says colic is a mystery best waited out is drawing on the reality that most colic does eventually resolve by three or four months, regardless of what is tried. The parent forum insisting it is dairy is drawing on real cases where an elimination diet coincided with improvement. The provider pointing to the nervous system is drawing on cases where digestive interventions alone did not move the needle at all.
None of these observations are fabricated. The disagreement comes from each group looking at a different slice of a genuinely layered pattern and mistaking their slice for the whole picture. A framework broad enough to hold digestive maturity, food sensitivity in the rare cases where it is real, and nervous system tension all at once tends to explain far more of what families actually experience than any single theory defended on its own.
How Our Doctors Approach Colic
We start by hearing your baby's birth story, feeding pattern, and everything you have already tried. A gentle physical exam paired with INSiGHT neurological scanning shows us where nervous system stress is concentrated. From there, our doctors use light, nervous system focused contacts at the upper neck and along the spine, gentler than the pressure you would use to check a ripe piece of fruit, to help ease that tension. Many babies visibly relax during an adjustment, and some fall asleep.
Where to Go From Here
If the usual explanations have not matched what you are actually seeing with your baby, it may be worth looking at the nervous system piece directly instead of waiting it out. Learn more about how we support colic and infant digestive issues, or get our free guide on the nervous system side of colic. When you are ready, book online, or call us at (248) 616-0900.
