No baby should ever have to cry alone

How I Rediscovered the Ancient Secrets for Calming Crying BabiesI certainly didn¿t realize how easy it was to calm crying babies when I began my pediatric studies in the early 1970s. During my medical-school training at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, my professors taught me that babies scream due to gas pains, so there were two valid approaches for soothing colic. First, try Grandmother¿s advice of holding, rocking, and pacifiers. If that failed, try medicine: sedatives (to push a baby into sleep), anti-spasm medicines (to treat stomach cramps), or anti-gas drops (to help get out burps). By the late 1970s, however, these three medical approaches were called into question. Sedating babies was considered inappropriate. Doctors stopped using anti-spasm medicines after several babies treated with them lapsed into comas and died. And anti-gas drops lost their appeal when research proved them to be no more effective than water. Although my medical education was excellent, I felt helpless when it came to caring for colicky newborns. As a resident, I worked for three years at Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles, one of the world¿s busiest pediatric hospitals.