Rex Features
Researchers are claiming that babies are two-and-a-half times more likely to have colic if their mums suffer from migraines.
Medics at the University of California studied 154 new mums and babies for the research, focusing on the babies at two months old, when colicky symptoms generally peak.
The mums were asked about their babies crying patterns and their own history of migraines. Their answers were then analysed to see if the colic symptoms fitted the condition's clinical definition.
It was found that 29 per cent of the babies whose mums were migraine sufferers had colic, compared to 11 per cent of little ones whose mothers didn't.
Dr Amy Gelfand - a child neurologist with the Headache Centre at UCSF - and her team now think that colic could be an early manifestation of a series of conditions known as 'childhood periodic syndromes' which are believed to be precursors to migraines later in life.
Studies have found that youngsters with colic may be more sensitive to stimuli in their environment, just like adult migraine sufferers are.
The research team at UCSF is now planning to look at groups of colicky babies over the course of their childhood to see if they go on to develop other childhood periodic syndromes, such as abdominal migraine.
Dr Gelfand will announce the findings of her research to the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting in New Orleans in April.
Do you think there is a connection? Are you a migraine sufferer and did you have, or do you have, a colicky baby?