Migraine in Childhood and Adolescence Linked to having Colic as Infants

Migraine headaches in children and adolescents belonging to the age group of 6-18 were more likely to have had colic as infants, according to a news release.

Colicky babies cause stress to their mothers because they cry with the pain that starts and stops abruptly. It displays symptoms of distress.  

The study, which examined the relation between migraine and colic, was conducted by Silvia Romanello MD., of the APHP-Hospital Robert Debre, Paris, and colleagues.

The study was conducted on 208 children between the age of 6-18, who were diagnosed with migraines. This data was compared with the control group that consisted of 471 children belonging to the same age group. Apart from this, they also examined an additional of 120 children who experienced tension headaches.

The researchers noticed that nearly 72.6 percent children with migraines were more likely to have experienced colic as infants than those without migraine, which consisted of just 26.5 percent of the participants.  Even in the subgroup analysis, 73.9 percent had confirmed the migraine and infantile colic relation without aura, and 69.7 percent kids had migraine with aura. The same association was absent in those kids with tension-type headaches.

"The link between infantile colic and migraine could be based on a pathogenetic mechanism common to migraine without aura and also migraine with aura. We found that among migraine characteristics, only pulsatile pain was more frequent in children with a history of infantile colic than among children with migraine but without infantile colic," the authors said in a statement.

The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.