Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Dedication
- Section 1 Principles of Emergency Medicine
- Section 2 Primary Complaints
- 9 Abdominal pain
- 10 Abnormal behavior
- 11 Allergic reactions and anaphylactic syndromes
- 12 Altered mental status
- 13 Chest pain
- 14 Constipation
- 15 Crying and irritability
- 16 Diabetes-related emergencies
- 17 Diarrhea
- 18 Dizziness and vertigo
- 19 Ear pain, nosebleed and throat pain (ENT)
- 20 Extremity trauma
- 21 Eye pain, redness and visual loss
- 22 Fever in adults
- 23 Fever in children
- 24 Gastrointestinal bleeding
- 25 Headache
- 26 Hypertensive urgencies and emergencies
- 27 Joint pain
- 28 Low back pain
- 29 Pelvic pain
- 30 Rash
- 31 Scrotal pain
- 32 Seizures
- 33 Shortness of breath in adults
- 34 Shortness of breath in children
- 35 Syncope
- 36 Toxicologic emergencies
- 37 Urinary-related complaints
- 38 Vaginal bleeding
- 39 Vomiting
- 40 Weakness
- Section 3 Unique Issues in Emergency Medicine
- Section 4 Appendices
- Index
15 - Crying and irritability
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Dedication
- Section 1 Principles of Emergency Medicine
- Section 2 Primary Complaints
- 9 Abdominal pain
- 10 Abnormal behavior
- 11 Allergic reactions and anaphylactic syndromes
- 12 Altered mental status
- 13 Chest pain
- 14 Constipation
- 15 Crying and irritability
- 16 Diabetes-related emergencies
- 17 Diarrhea
- 18 Dizziness and vertigo
- 19 Ear pain, nosebleed and throat pain (ENT)
- 20 Extremity trauma
- 21 Eye pain, redness and visual loss
- 22 Fever in adults
- 23 Fever in children
- 24 Gastrointestinal bleeding
- 25 Headache
- 26 Hypertensive urgencies and emergencies
- 27 Joint pain
- 28 Low back pain
- 29 Pelvic pain
- 30 Rash
- 31 Scrotal pain
- 32 Seizures
- 33 Shortness of breath in adults
- 34 Shortness of breath in children
- 35 Syncope
- 36 Toxicologic emergencies
- 37 Urinary-related complaints
- 38 Vaginal bleeding
- 39 Vomiting
- 40 Weakness
- Section 3 Unique Issues in Emergency Medicine
- Section 4 Appendices
- Index
Summary
Scope of the problem
Small children cry and cry and cry. In part, this is due to the limited repertoire of communication skills they possess. They cry because crying is remarkably effective; there is no other infant behavior that elicits an adult's attention and response more reliably than the cry. At 2 weeks of age, the average crying time of a normal infant is 2 hours per day. By age 6 weeks, that increases to nearly 3 hours per day. Fortunately, it decreases to about 1 hour per day by 12 weeks of age.
Inconsolable crying is a very challenging presentation for several reasons: the child (usually under 2 years of age) may have nonspecific symptoms (or no symptoms at all except for the crying), and the associated diseases can range from benign to life-threatening. Inconsolable crying is also very challenging for parents. The primary focus of the emergency practitioner should be to search for and rule out serious causes of crying and irritability. Benign etiologies, although more common, should be established only after first considering the serious etiologies.
Pathophysiology
Crying is one of the only ways by which an infant communicates discomfort or distress. In that sense, it is a nonspecific form of communication. However, the infant's cry is probably more than a distress signal. Studies of the acoustic qualities of infant cries indicate that the cry probably contains “encoded” messages about the state of early neurologic development.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- An Introduction to Clinical Emergency MedicineGuide for Practitioners in the Emergency Department, pp. 217 - 224Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005