Oddities of gas

Naina had gas pains until she was two years old. It took us the best part of the first year of her life to realise why she was waking up screaming at midnight in uncontrollable pain. Doses and doses of infacol were consumed. Alternative medicine treatments were tried. Not feeding to sleep was tried. Formula was tried. No formula was tried. No medicine was tried. More medicine was tried. No luck. At completely unexpected times, like the middle of the day, Naina would develop screaming colic pains that made us fear she'd broken something. Confusingly, when she did break something (fell down the stairs and broke her clavicle), we did assume it to be gas.

When Deepti and Naina went to India in 2009, a single traumatic evening at a hotel was the worst of it. For the rest of that trip, the gas never re-occurred. Nothing. No medicines, no treatments, no rubs, no lotions, no potions. No no lotions, no no potions. I think you get my drift. The change was so dramatic, so reversed from the previous presentation one would think we were hypochondriacs who munchausenly made her develop gas to satisfy our desire to increase our affinity and spend at the local pharmacy.

Fastforward a few months to little Mr S. He too developed gas. He too would scream uncontrollably in the evenings and nights. Sometimes even with a dose or two of Infacol on board. I felt conned. Surely this never happens to little white babies. A keen eyed maternal health care nurse suggest something a little more rough and tough. Basically, baby mylanta. And cue trip to India.

Gas? What's gas is the basic refrain. Nothing. Nada. Zippo. Seriously conned. All good things must come to an end. They're coming back, sometime soon. I am already writing the next chapter (when little S returned from India...).