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This is not a normal cry. This cry indicates extreme sudden pain.

For example: If you were sitting peacefully somewhere and someone threw burning coals on your body, how would you scream?

She is swaddled and fed, then she goes to sleep, peacefully for an hour or so. Then all of a sudden she starts screaming like I described above. This has started happening frequently now.

Yesterday she was awake, happy, and gurgling merrily, and then the incident happened.

Though after some minutes she does calm down, but I am worried.
What could be the cause?

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  • I have heard that screaming very loudly was an instinct coming from the times when human being were living in the savanah: left alone, a baby cries loudly to let the mom find him again easily, which increases greatly the survival rate.
    – Guillaume
    Oct 14, 2013 at 9:17
  • 1
    Is this happening a similar time (e.g. 30 minutes) after feeding? Google for silent reflux (bringing up digested, acidy milk) Oct 14, 2013 at 10:03
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    Forums are not the best place to ask medical questions. You will get lots of people giving anecdotal examples of something similar happening to their child (it's why i dislike forums). This sounds like something that you need to be speaking to a doctor about. A child screaming in pain is not normal and you need to do something about it. Oct 14, 2013 at 10:07
  • screeeming or crying? Of course you should seek a doctor, etc., but a scream (for few seconds) is something, crying (for some minutes) is different... and for what I understand, she is crying, right ? Oct 14, 2013 at 18:15
  • In addition to everything other folks have said, she might be teething.
    – Charles
    Oct 29, 2013 at 20:36

3 Answers 3

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You need to see your pediatrician about this. Make a sound recording and bring it along. Keep a diary. The more data you collect, the easier it will be to narrow this down. Anecdotal: one of our kids did the same thing. We never quite got to the bottom of it, but we have a strong suspicion that it was some urinal tract infection so it would hurt often when he would pee.

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Babies aren't objective about their screaming. What to them seems like the worst thing in the world might objectively be fairly minor. Different babies are different, and even the same baby will change as she matures. It could be anything from thinking you left her alone to some painful gas she doesn't know how to get rid of.

By all means consult a doctor if that will help ease your mind, but also ask some experienced parents you trust when it happens when they are visiting.

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Babies at that age can dream, and they can have nightmares. It's not uncommon and not necessarily something to worry about, all other things being equal. If she's self-soothing herself to sleep after waking, great. If she's not and you have to console her a little before putting her back down, well, there are worse things.

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