Newborn Daily Crying Time Duration

Despite their common use parental diaries of infants' cry and fuss behaviour have not been compared with objective methods of recording. To understand what is meant by the descriptions of crying and fussing in the diaries, the diaries of 10 mothers of 6 week old infants were compared with tape recordings of vocalisations made by the babies over a 24 hour period. There were moderately strong correlations between the frequency of episodes (clusters of 'negative vocalisations') on the audiotape and episodes of 'crying and fussing' in the diaries, and between the duration of episodes on the audiotape and episodes of 'crying' in the diaries. To assess the acceptability of the diaries for recording information for clinical and epidemiological research, they were then used in a population study of a wide socioeconomic group. Usable data were obtained from 91% of the sample. The results suggest that despite pronounced differences between recording methods, these diaries may provide valid and useful reports of crying and fussing in the short term. Show more

Excessive infant crying, or infantile colic, is a common and often stress-inducing problem for parents that can ultimately result in child abuse. From previous research it is known that maternal depression is related to excessive crying, but so far little is known about the influence of paternal depression. In a prospective, population-based study, we obtained information on both maternal and paternal depressive symptoms at 20 weeks of pregnancy by using the Brief Symptom Inventory. Parental depressive symptoms were related to excessive crying in 4426 two-month-old infants. The definition of excessive crying was based on the widely used Wessel's criteria (ie, crying >3 hours for >3 days in the past week). After adjustment for depressive symptoms of the mother and relevant confounders, we found a 1.29 (95% confidence interval: 1.09-1.52) higher risk of excessive infant crying per SD of paternal depressive symptoms. Our findings indicate that paternal depressive symptoms during pregnancy might be a risk factor for excessive infant crying. This finding could be related to genetic transmission, interaction of a father with lasting depressive symptoms with the infant, or related indirectly through contextual stressors such as marital, familial, or economic distress. Show more