Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Colic and Gripe Water

Episode Date: January 4, 2019

Gripe water and colic are a match made in Sawbones heaven: A cure-all and a catch all. This week, we'll explore the history of how a misunderstood diagnosis has helped keep a made-up medicine on the shelves. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's busted out. We were shot through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.

Some medicines, some medicines that escalate my cop for the mouth Hello everybody and welcome back to solbones if we've never left My name is Justin Tyler Macaroi you Completely hello and welcome to solbones a marital tour of misguided medicine. I was trying to streamline for 2019 There's nothing wrong with that Okay, I forgot this is a sol solbona. My name is Justin McRoy. And I'm Sydney McRoy and I apologize that my husband ruined our opening there. We have you just ruined. We have this nice catchy little hello, welcome to solbona. We had

a break for the holidays and we are ready to get, but like we had a great Christmas episode. We had a great week off and we're ready to get back to doing what we have always done on sobhones, which is bringing you the latest instant pot recipes. No, our tips and tricks and hacks. No, you're confusing this with your other podcast about Instant Pot. Instant Pot recipes. Okay. This is the show.

This is the one where it's it's Instant Pot. Instant Pot. This is the show where we talk about the Island of the Coast of Nova Scotia. Oh, I cannot hear anything else. It's 1795, Daniel McGinnis, and please stop. Please stop. Curse of Oak Island. I cannot hear anything else about Oak Island. Do you want to do your again? Curse of Oak Island recap podcast with me Cindy. It's only six seasons. No, no, no. They don't

find anything spoilers. This week they found a stone and then someone showed up with an Astrology map that is going to break this thing. Okay. Moving on. I will say we just got a little update. Your dad who is watching Charlie just asked me if she can have ice cream. It is it is 1147 a.m. folks. Folks. I said we're too close to lunch. And he's that ex. That was the right. That was the right. She's been sick. I've? I would say, share a popsicle. She's been sick, I've been sick. She's gonna have a popsicle.

That's why I sound like this. But that's not what we're gonna talk about. Justin, I wanted to talk about something that is, it's an old thing that's still used today. I love those things. I love when we find these remedies or diagnoses. Remedies, medicine, this is the medicine one. Okay.

Yes. Yeah. When you start talking about the ice cream thing, I thought, is this the one we share funny parenting stories from our life? But no. That's our YouTube. Who do you do that with?

That's our YouTube series. That's our YouTube series, the Macarons, where we just have zany adventures. Do you have another wife that you do this? We probably watch these videos that's just families doing things. Okay, and it makes me feel like, do you like that family on YouTube better than ours? Because all they seem to do is like open huge toys and go to water parks. That's like all these families.

That's because they're making a bunch of money off of YouTube videos. YouTube money, that's almost something to right, I want to do our podcast I'm sorry to get through and we're gonna run long. I haven't mad at me that we ran long I'm talking for two weeks since we recorded the last episode of solbodes. I'm really enjoying it. I want to talk about gripe water I got it. I got some right now that get just just hey get just, just, Hey, what really grinds my gear? Yeah, just run through those in your head. $8 for a Bob Aquafina. You kidding me?

Don't say them out loud. So thank you to Ann, Alicia, Michael, Amanda, and Vanessa for suggesting collic and gripe water and things around it. We're gonna talk a little bit about collic. I've said before, I actually said this on our book tour that I had avoided doing a whole episode on collic because it's one of the darker things that we can talk about, but we've talked about

a lot of dark stuff on the show before. So I just wanted to find a way so that it was not just non-stop sadness for 30 minutes. Make it fun. The way that you Make it fun. The way that. No, not make it fun. But like have more interesting and information than just like, wow, that was super depressing. Thanks. Great way to start the year. So I'll bend. We can maybe do like maybe kind of like a little bit of a warning, a content warning in the case. I don't belabor the point, but certainly. I think you and me, especially, you like frequently, if you find like, infant death challenging.

Who does it? Well, I don't know that that's like, specifically challenging. Yeah, I mean, if we're gonna get into, and this is not gonna surprise you, Collick has a lot to do with baby's crime, and if we start getting into the history of stuff, people have done to make baby stop crying,

you can follow that line of logic. If that's something you'd rather not hear, the first half of the show, I'm gonna talk about some of the history of Collick. The second half, we're just gonna talk about gripe water though. So I think that'll be easier if you're interested. And a lot of people might be

because gripe water is still sold in stores today Justin, do you know what collic is? I mean Okay, you have told me in the past couple days, so I'm gonna pretend like you haven't okay I'll tell you what I would have said Is like they're crying a lot. That's true. That's I mean because of gas Okay, because of gas and And that is one of the, I think misconceptions about collic is that when we use the word collic, we have any idea

what we're really talking about. Like that is. You used me to illustrate misconceptions. I should be used to it at this point, but it is just humiliating. That's the whole show. Here's what a lot of Duns is think. No, it's not Duns is. A lot of people, like a lot of, I mean, I would say physicians, probably. Oh crap, here she goes, folks. I'm just saying, I can't afford it.

Go hard. People assume. Get them. When you say collic, first of all, the word collic is derived from like the same Greek root as colon. So it, like you get it. Like it sounds like it's related to your stomach.

Something's going on in the baby stomach and so the baby's crying a lot. A lot of people are familiar with collic because they maybe have experienced it as parents or caregivers or, you know, I don't know if they've just heard baby's crying. And you've heard about it on like media. You talk about colloquy babies and my baby has colloquy

and nobody really knows what that means other than that the baby's crying a lot. And that's really how we define it. It's just excessive crime. That's what when we use the word colloquy, we're not actually talking about anything to do with the GI tract or any other part of the body. It just means the baby's crying a lot. And it's important to remember when you

start trying to define excessive crying, how much a baby is expected to cry. A lot? Yes, babies can cry a lot, especially in the very early months and like the first three months of life. A lot of crying could be completely normal for your baby. And that's really important to remember. There was a study that just tried to see like how much on average do babies cry? And up to the age of six weeks, the average infant cries up to 133 minutes a day. Not necessarily consecutive, 133 minutes, of course. But that doesn't sound like a lot,

but if I think other parents may be able to sympathize, if your baby is crying even for two minutes, it feels like an eternity. Yeah, so imagine 60 of those back, back, back, back, back. Yes, but we're talking about 133 minutes a day. Right. So, that's a lot for the average baby. The high end of normal crying is 250 minutes a day. That's like too Lord of the That's a lot of crying and this can be and I mean this is normal crying. This is like your baby just

might cry this much and that doesn't mean anything's wrong or you're doing anything wrong. your baby just might cry this much. And that doesn't mean anything's wrong or you're doing anything wrong, just might be what the baby's gonna do. The generally accepted definition of collic. When we say collic, usually for a disease, if we're talking about a disease process, I can tell you like, okay, what this is,

is this cell is doing this or this message is getting misinterpreted this way or whatever, or this invader is coming in your body, I can tell you what it means. Colleq, the definition is just based on how it, like, how much a baby cries. If a baby is crying for more than three hours a day, more than three days a week, in an infant under three months, who is otherwise healthy, they have colleq. That sounds to me like it may not be a thing then.

Well, and there are other criteria that you can use. There's actually, there's one specifically for, if you think it has a GI cause, that you can use. So, I mean, part of the debate about colic is that we don't really know what it means. It's just a word we've used to describe babies who cry a lot. And there are parents who will report

that they have colic-y babies, but if you actually, like they've done studies to see, like, do they actually meet this definition and they don't. So even though, like, the way we colloquially use the word colloquy and the way that you would define colloquy, none of it is used. It's the same. It's worth noting also that we're not talking about we don't understand colloquy. No.

It's that we'd, like, literally literally like, it might not be a thing. It's like flexible enough to maybe not be very useful medically. Exactly. It's too broad. It's describing a lot of stuff that might actually be different things. Okay. It was the term collic is not at least in my med school curriculum was never taught. Like, we don't learn collic as a medical entity. I'd say the closest, and I've seen this as like, these two things can be used interchangeably, is the period of purple crying.

Yes. Yes, which I've- We had to watch a DVD about the period of purple crying before we left the NICU with Charlie, and it was very much just like, hey, listen, babies cry, y'all. Babies cry and we don't know why. And the purple is like an acronym for Stump thing.

Like it's like, please unburble. I don't know. But the point is that exactly like you're saying, babies in the beginning will cry a lot. And it's incredibly distressing. I can't under. I don't know. But the point is that exactly like you're saying, babies in the beginning will cry a lot, and it's incredibly distressing. I can't underline that enough. And so I don't want, when I say,

callic isn't a thing. I am in no way suggesting that babies don't cry or it's not that bad or you should get over it or that parents shouldn't be distressed by it. Oh my goodness, I've been there. But we probably shouldn't just label every baby who cries a lot, call it and move on with our lives because what it's led to as we're going to get into is some really unhelpful solutions for this entity known as

collic. The perception of the crying is probably the more dangerous part of collic in all honesty. It's in perception of the crying? How stressful it is to parents and to caregivers and what behaviors that can lead to. There have been a lot of studies that have shown that, you know, there are a lot of caregivers who are driven to dangerous and abusive behaviors because of how overwhelming the crying can be. It's hard, y'all. It's like, I mean, as a parent, you don't really understand this. It's weird

if you hear baby cry and it's like, and I think this is more common before you have kids. It's like, oh, it's annoying. Like, it, we're biologically, I think, like wired to like really, really, like, trust me. However bothered you are by it, the parent is like 20 times bothered by it. It's really hard to like. It's just especially if you're ever like done any sort of cry it out or furburized or whatever, you know, it is extremely tough. Yeah. Here hearing, I would say your own child cries, especially it's horrible

because you want to do something. You want to make it stop. You want your your baby to be okay. You want to fix whatever. If there is a you want to do something, you want to make it stop, you want your baby to be okay, you want to fix whatever, if there is a problem that you can fix, you want to fix it, and it's a really horrible feeling. Yeah, I would urge, I've always tried to be this way, but as a parent, I think I'm even more so. If you hear a baby crying on an airplane or in a restaurant or somewhere, like, please don't act annoyed. Don't be irritated. Trust me. The parent and the baby are having a

rough time than you are in that moment. Have some sympathy. Why do I be kind? If I say you were a baby too once, if I hear a stranger with a crying baby, something I'll do that parents rosy and appreciate is I'll go over there and I'll say like, I hear your babies crying Do you want me to take them while and just kind of walk around with them and and care for them? I would not do that as my I would never do that parents really appreciate it yet

No, I would say they wouldn't And they always call police officers to tell them how helpful I've been and maybe give me some sort of metal I don't know when we When we get into the reasons for crying or for collic and what might be causing it, there are a lot of different theories and you can see where some of these things would play in. Like some of the thought is that in some cases, collic might be a behavioral thing. Maybe it just has something to do with like a parental stress or psychosocial factors like how much support somebody has. If you have other people helping you take care of a baby, a parental stress or psychosocial factors like how much support somebody has.

If you have other people helping you take care of a baby, the crime probably isn't going to affect you quite as much in terms of how stressful you find it. Whereas if you are the sole caregiver 24-7, it might wear on you a little more, especially if your baby is on the higher end of the normal crime. So all of this can play into it. They've tried to look for biological causes. Does it have something to do with serotonin production? Is it some sort of early form of migraine that we're not recognizing? They've tried to link it to environmental factors like

tobacco exposure or smoking. None of this has really proven 100 percent, like, well, we found some correlation here and there, but we can't prove causation. A lot of people do believe it's GI related, like you said, just and a lot of people think it's gas or just an upset tummy in some way. There's a lot of theories as to what exactly could be the cause is it lactose is it milk protein is it something to do with how you're feeding the baby like bottle versus breast versus burping versus positioning with what is it Is it something to do with how you're feeding the baby, like bottle versus breast versus burping versus positioning? What is it? Is it something to do with gut bacteria? Nobody really knows if any of this is the case. Probably there are some babies with upset tummies

and then there are some babies who are just crying a lot and then, you know, that's it. They're probably a lot of different reasons. Yeah, but it's probably just, I don't know, baby's cry. The problem is really old, as you can imagine, babies have been crying since there have been babies, and it's very distressedful, which is why the word dates back to ancient Greece. There weren't really attempts to diagnose the problem for a long time. It was just like, let's soothe the baby.

And one of the earliest, that choice is for soothing a baby was opium. Nice. So as we look through history, a lot of the treatments, quote unquote, for a collic, were really just ways to make your baby go to sleep, so that they would stop crying. Whether or not you knew that's what you were doing. I'm not accusing everyone of intentionally doing this.

I'm saying it would soothe the baby because it made them sleepy. And so it relieved the collic, it was the perception. So like in the middle ages, parents and wet nurses might put opium on their nipples in order to soothe the baby. I might just pay for the wet nurses though. To put opium on their nipples.

To allow a little bit, you know, your relax. Well, a lot of them were considered like mother's helpers. Yeah, it's like, oh, I got a little bit of my finger. Oh, I got half a bottle on my hand. Oh, gosh, I got a drink at all up. Maybe I'll give you a moment to now. Addiction to some of these substances, as we'll talk about, was actually a problem for adults too.

I might be getting like soothing syrup and things. It's my thing less's funny. I said. Plenty had lots of ideas. Of course. Of course. Plenty of the elder advised other than opium, cumin and parsnips and almonds and honey and salt. And then there's this whole paragraph about all the different ways. Roasted.

Wait, wait, hold on. Stop. Cumin and almonds and honey for who? Well, babies with. For the baby are their parents. Babies. Are you playing? Although, Plenty believe Collick could persist into adulthood.

So he believed that there were things. I never believed. So, yeah, so there were, so some of the UC might have advised for adults, but because I thought there would be a life. I was going to say like, we're Collick that we're in adults. He specifically mentioned that. That is interesting that some things go away as kids, but other things persist like Collick. I, I know I have access to a lot more medical information isn't interesting that some things go away as kids, but other things persist like Collick.

I, I know I have access to a lot more medical information than plenty that it has, plenty of it, his time, but I do have to believe that even he wouldn't have been like, uh, kids crying, huh? Maybe a handful of nuts. Enjoy these mixed nuts. Not sure. Not sure. Not sure.

Maybe with no teeth. Yeah. Uh, he had lots of, um, ways that Collick could be cured by roasted lark. Uh, he said, you know, he said, you know, he's I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something.

Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something.

Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. Sorry, I'll tell you something. heart of the bird and attach it to your thigh or just swallow the whole heart, fresh and warm.

Now, child, are you appeased? Child, are you appeased? Now you're crying, stop you've watched your mother eat a large heart, fresh. I'll eat a fresh, large heart, does not be from crying. He spoke of two brothers. One was cured of colic by eating a lark and wearing its heart in a golden bracelet. The other performed a sacrifice in a chapel built of raw bricks in a furnace and then with the same well different lark.

I mean, assuming a different like and that that cured it. And in general, something roasted, like related, he thought was a good idea. I like a sin ham in the 1700s. He had maybe my favorite collet cure. Just hold a live puppy on your tummy. Oh, okay. Yes, I could. I would be careful if it's a baby.

Yeah, don't like don't smish the baby with a puppy. I'll smish the baby. Make sure the careful if it's a baby. Yeah, don't like that. Don't smush the baby with a puppy. They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy.

They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy.

They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy. They should be the puppy. in the college, but it was really probably just putting them to sleep. So like alcohol, volume, phenobarbital, there were medicines that were specifically aimed at the stomach that came along later, things like dysyclamine and donatone, scopolamine, all of these things, probably at the end of the day, maybe some of them were helping some stomach issues, whatever. At the end of the day, they were probably all just putting babies to sleep.

But the thing that has persisted is gripe water. What's that? I'm gonna tell you what gripe water is. But first let's go to the building department. Classic, let's go. The medicines, the medicines that ask you make my car before the mouth. Now, Sydney, what is grape water?

Cause I legitimately have absolutely no clue. Okay, so when we get into the history of collic, like I said, a lot of people wanted to blame it on some sort of stomach thing that was going on with your baby, that your baby couldn't communicate to you. So we need something that will fix the stomach thing. Grape water is really aimed at that. If you believe,

Collick has something to do with tummy troubles, Grype water would be in your mind a solution for it. It's probably named for an old term for gastroenteritis. Or like, you know, you have some diarrhea. The gripe, something called the watery gripes. Oh, God, no! So the name gripe water specifically would indicate that it would be used for something.

That's gonna be me. Tommy related. It dates back to William Woodward, who was a doctor practicing in London in the mid 1800s. And this, I mean, like this was a very normally educated doctor for the time. He had the appropriate education and he was a print just under a pharmacist. He was very well respected. He came up with a lot of different kind of cures, treatments, whatever you want to patent medicine type things.

And specifically in the 1840s, malaria was a big problem in London. And specifically, a lot of people were looking for something to treat babies, infants who were diagnosed with what was sometimes commonlaria, but what was also commonly called fenn fever. Fenn fever, fian fever. And when, F-E-N fever. And when you kind of look at this period of history, it's important to remember that like, a lot of things were just named for stuff that was nearby.

So like Fen fever was probably malaria, but then sometimes you might have been applying the term Fen fever to a baby who had a fever for a totally unrelated reason. You know what I mean? But there were Fens nearby. You know what I mean? I won't be able to call that. But there were fens near pie. Do you know what a fenn is? A fenn is a low marshy area of land. Okay then. I had to read about fens. There used to be a lot, I guess, in the vicinity of London, but a lot of them have been drained for agricultural purposes.

And mosquitoes. Yes, because these were great breeding grounds for mosquitoes. So it made sense that as we began to understand the mosquitoes carried malaria that people were blaming this fever on the fence where the mosquitoes were. Yeah, you know, I mean, that was all connected. But it is worth noting that it like I love this. If you look back through history, there is a fever for like every geographical, like formation for every time of day. There is, there are, fan fevers of course, plane fevers, jungle fevers, mountain fevers, night fevers, day fevers,

dinner fevers, supper fevers, sea fevers, land fevers, river fevers, none of this really means anything other than this happens to be nearby and I have a fever. Yeah. That is the only thing they haven't common. So, Fen fever was probably more than just malaria, but mainly malaria. Okay. I just thought that was interesting. I didn't know about friends. I didn't know about any of this. So what's grape water? Okay. Well, you had to know this to know why grape water became a thing.

Okay. So everybody was trying to treat fenn fever in the 1840s in London. And some people were using quinine, which was good. That was actually probably helping, since it was malaria. But there was a group of doctors who came up with this other treatment that they thought was very helpful.

And it involved dill oil and alcohol and probably had some other stuff in it. But they started using that. That's what label said. They started using that to treat and fever. And William Woodward got wind of it and decided like, well, I'm going to make something similar to that because what he heard was that, well, it was definitely very soothing to the babies that they were giving it to for this Finn fever malaria thing. And he thought, you know what, this has wider applications.

I think this could be used for more than just this fever. I think this could be used for anything that upsets your baby, especially anything tummy related. So he started coming up with his own formulation of it. And in 1876, he registered Grypo water as a trademark. So it was based on these docs out of Naughty Num who came up with this Dill Oil Alcohol combination. He made his own that contained alcohol, sucrose, dill seed oil, and by carbonate. And this was the first thing called gripe water. And like I said, he named it that probably because he was aiming it more at just like, if your baby's tummy is messed up for any reason, take this. The original packaging has the infant Hercules on it, which is painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

That's good. And it is still used, I think, on like Woodward's grape water, like the original Woodward's grape water. It's a picture of infant Hercules strangling two snakes in his cradle. Wow. Because Juno sent them to destroy him.

That's some, that's some, he strangled them in his, it's, it'so sent them to destroy him. That's him. He strangled them in his. It's a, it's kind of an adorable, well, I don't know, adorable, right word. It's a great picture. I would look it up, the infurculates. It's very good. This is a baby that's just strangling these snakes.

Anyway, it did well initially with him selling it both to consumers. Hey, does your baby cry? Try this as well as in bulk to doctors and hospitals. So this was being used as a like a you'd go to the hospital and your baby was crying and they'd give you gripe water. Like this was not just being used at home like a folk remedy. Doctors were prescribing gripe water. It did well and then his son took over the business

after he died and it did even better at that point. His son was not in the medical world, but he turned out to be pretty good at marketing and sales because he began kind of calling on this like patriotic use of grape water. Like we are, the British Empire is growing this like patriotic use of gripe water. Okay. Like, we are, the British Empire is growing and it's claiming the world.

And as we go and we spread across the globe, our babies are going to get sick. And as we're protecting the people of the globe, gripe water will protect the babies all over the world. And so like they had all these very patriotic ads with like battleships and cavalry carrying, I don't know, gripe water to infants all over the British Empire. And the tag was Granny told mother and mother told me so it was like this like it's been passed

down for America's apple pie. Well, no. To this British. Okay, you know, but you know, Well, no. To this British. Okay, you know, but you know. British is... British tea. Like, what if a British people like scones? Tea, I think, is the thing most people would say, right? Scones.

You're right. Okay. Either way, it was carried all over the world. It was very popular in China, and it wasn't marketed in China. So a lot of this was probably just by word of mouth. Like wives of British diplomats, going places, and being like, you know, it works for my kid here. Let me show you this gripe water. So it was taken all over and it was, it was very popular. In 1926, it was taken over by Sinetus Trust Limited and eventually this other company,

Cetan Shoe London International. And it was marketed and doctors prescribed it and it was this huge medicine. If you look at its indications, they never put collic on it, which is really strange, because that was the number one thing that people were using it for. It was marketed for flatulence, minor tummy upset, and TV, which some collic probably is. Yeah.

Well, no, because it's under three months, but that'd be unusual. But anyway, in 1992, the alcohol was taken out of the formula That's 1992. That's not that long ago. That's that's a wicket. I yeah, that's a wicket to recent. Yeah, so in 1992 Everybody was like, you know what? We probably shouldn't give alcohol to babies. That seems bad Let's take the alcohol out of the out of the gripe water And they also switched out the sucrose that was in it for something called lichason that wouldn't cause cavities Great. I just like a different sweetener

And and that was good considering the alcohol part of it. So a dose of gripe water the initial formulation that was used up till 1992 in a four kilogram baby That's like like nine pounds. Something like that. No, eight pounds. Whatever. Two point two, right? Yes, nine pounds.

Anyway, would have the relative amount of alcohol as I look this up, it said five tots of whiskey in an adult. So then I had to look about what a tot was. So a tot is a small amount of whiskey, usually like 15 to 20 ml. Yeah. So if I had a couple of shots of whiskey, this would be the same as the amount of alcohol this baby was getting. Like a equivalent of me doing a couple shots. It just gets your baby loses. What you're saying? Uh, so they took the alcohol out. It still had the sweetener in it, it still had the dill oil still had the sodium bicarbonate. Does it work?

I mean, they stop crying, I guess. It doesn't work. Oh, crumbs. anecdotally, people will tell you that it works, but studies have never shown that babies treated with gripe water or less colic even babies you aren't. In fact, there was one that showed the remore episodes of vomiting with gripe water or less colloquium, and babies you aren't. In fact, there was one that showed there were more episodes of vomiting with gripe water, but it didn't, it also didn't take into account

like if you're giving your baby gripe water, maybe they're already having vomiting, maybe they're spitting up more already, it didn't like take, it didn't control for that. So I'm not gonna say it makes things worse, but I don't have any evidence that it makes anything better. If you break down the ingredients, the bicarbonate would help if acid were the problem. I like if you had excessive acid production, but nobody's suggesting that for colic.

Nobody thinks that babies have very acidic stomachs, and so they need something to calm the acid down in their stomach. Like we would take a pepsid or something. Nobody's suggesting that. So that doesn't make sense. The alcohol isn't in there anymore, but they even did a study to see does alcohol call GI discomfort, not crying, but GI discomfort, and it doesn't.

Man, it's like this stuff isn't even good. So the alcohol may have made baby sleepy, but it certainly didn't call them their stomachs down. The dill has been used for gas for some time. That's an old treatment for like if you're gassy, have some dill, have some dill has been used for gas for some time. That's an old treatment for like if you're gassy have some dill Some dill oil, but there's I mean again, I'm talking more like anecdote. Oh, I'm not prune that doesn't prove anything The sweet part is probably the only thing that has an actual effect and this is interesting Sweet stuff has been used as like a mild pain reliever for centuries. Yeah, like, do you mean like how the, what is it, pectin and like, uh,

loons, cough drops and stuff like that? The sugar from those are like rock candy. Use the sort of, sort of, throat kind of thing. Kind of, kind of like that. Yeah, that and a really good example is, um, prior to- It's probably more physical than chemical, right? kind of like that. Yeah, that and a really good example is prior to- Try more physical than chemical, right? Yeah, yeah, but but it is a taste thing. It's a taste meeting. I think it was prior to circumcisions for centuries. Babies have been given like some sort of sweet thing, like either crush dates or like a sweet,

what sweet red wine like apply like on your finger, like let the baby suck on it to soothe them before like a circumcision. I saw this done when I saw circumcisions performed as a med student. Wow, really? Yes, not it wasn't crushed dates or red wine. It was like, not it wasn't honey. It was like great jelly that they had like in packets in the hospital. I saw them dipping past fires in it and putting it in the baby's mouth before their circumcision. Yes. I, well, I thought that,

what is that just to give the baby a treat before they do? Why would they do that? And this is an ancient thing. But the idea is that it has some sort of mild analgesic effect that is taste mediated. So when they've done studies with just like a sugar solution, it calms babies down. So if anything in the gripe water actually makes your kids

stop crying, it probably is just that it tastes sweet. And that doesn't mean that it's working. It just means that's probably that if you see an effect, that's probably why you're seeing an effect. The bigger problem today is that one, there are a ton of different formulations other than Woodward, gripe water. They all contain different things, some are fennel, some have ginger, some have camomile,

some have lumen balm, there's some have charcoal, they some still do have sugar, most don't have alcohol anymore, so that's a good thing. The FDA said in 1993 that it's not a medicine, so it's only sold in the US asS. it's like a supplement. So you'll find it like over the counter and like the... It's usually with like the homeopathic stuff for babies, like you'll find it in the homeopathic area. It probably is one of the less harmful curals, but it is not doing anything. I mean, there is no study that shows that it does Anything right the trash folks at all the real harm is the misunderstanding of collic if your baby is crying And you can't console them and you think and they seem to be in pain or something seems off Anything is off. Please take them to a doctor get them checked out make sure they're okay

Never assume that it's nothing. Always check, get them checked out. But the answer might be sometimes that your baby's just gonna cry and do your best to sue them, comfort them, get help, get support, take breaks, lay your baby down sometimes. Sometimes you just need to like put your baby

in a safe place and sit down to the floor for a second and gather yourself. But the important thing is that it will go away after three months, it usually subsides. It's very rarely, it's usually shorter than that, but the long end is three months. And the important thing is that you're taking care of yourself and your baby to get you through that difficult period of time and don't rely on things like gripe water, which you're taking care of yourself and your baby to get you through that difficult period of time and don't rely on things like gripe water, which you're just really wasting your money on. It's one of the simultaneously most liberating things as apparent and most frustrating things as apparent.

And I would not, there are very few areas which I would, you know, feel confident enough to give people advice. But this one thing, it's shocking how many things this solution to is like, I don't know, babies hanging there, you know, it will, it will, it will get better over time. It just is what it is. Like, I think we are hardwired, especially these days to look for a solution for every single thing. I think that a lot of times babies are just like this

exercise and acceptance of this is in fact the way it is. There is nothing you need to or can do about it. It just is. Just do your best to get up, of course, always get things checked out. I never want to say like, bye, ignore it, it's nothing, no. Right, of course. You're worried, take your baby to get up, of course, always get things checked out. I never want to say like, I ignored it. It's nothing. No, you're worried.

Take your, take your baby to the doctor. Make sure they're okay. But sometimes the answer is just, it'll get easier. It'll get easier. I promise, get the help, get the support you need, get the help and support your baby needs. And don't waste your money on dill sugar water.

Sounds good. So maybe on chips folks, that's going to do it for us. Thank you so much for listening to our program. We hope you've enjoyed yourself. We really appreciate you hanging in there with us all year and we hope to have a great 2019 with you. We got a book out. It's called The Solbund's book.

It's kind of like this show, except it's a book. And you can find it at a lot of fine book stores all over. It is now widely available. And there is an audio book version of it that you can get through Audible. That we did. That we did that we recorded, and it is boring to do that, I would say.

So the book is not boring. The book's good. It's boring to read your own book into a microphone for many hours. It's so I hope you like it because it was boring to do. If you, you know the problem is, it would be fun to do the audiobook of somebody else's book

because I haven't read that book. I didn't even write it. I just read their book. I liked reading ear parts out loud, but then my parts, it was boring to read out loud. And I wanted to change some of the jokes, but they don't lay you. I'd say that was the hardest part is that if you're hypercritical, that's yeah, that's hard. Why did I write that? Why did I write that? I could have written that better. Anyway, it's a good, if you go to bit.ly4thlashthesalbonesbook,

that better. Anyway, it's a good, if you go to bit.ny4thlash.com, the solbona's book, then you can pick that book up. And we would really appreciate you doing that. And thanks to taxpayers for these sort of song medicines, this is the intro and outro of our program. Our whole family has a new website, by the way. It's called the McRoy family. If you go to McRoy.family, you can find it. There's a lot of information about tours. We're doing a show at SketchFest in like two weeks, less than two weeks. And if you click through,

if you go over Macroi.family, you look at tours, you can find a link to get tickets for that and remote tickets for PodCon that we're gonna be at. And so much more. So that's gonna do it for us folks. Get tickets for that and remote tickets for pod con that we're gonna be at and So much more so that's gonna do for us folks so until next time my name is just Mac Roy I'm sitting back right and as always don't drill a hole in your head Alright! Maximumfundad.org Comedy and Culture, Artistone. Listener supported.

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