Infants Suffering From Colic Get Relief With Chiropractic Care

INFANTS SUFFERING FROM COLIC GET RELIEF WITH CHIROPRACTIC CARE

A study in Denmark compared the results of administering Chiropractic care or medication to infants between 2 and 10 weeks of age who suffered from colic.  The fifty infants chosen had suffered one or more violent spells of crying for three or more hours per day for at least five of the prior seven days. Twenty-five of the infants were given spinal manipulation by a local Chiropractor and the others were given two weeks of dimethicone treatment. The parents in both groups were counseled on care and feeding. The results of the treatments were recorded in daily diaries.

After the third day of treatment, the spinal manipulation group showed an improvement in colic behavior greater than the improvement shown by the group treated with dimethicone.  At eight to ten days, the difference in response in the Chiropractic group was even more marked.  Also of note: Dimethicone (also called simethicone) is commonly prescribed for treatment of colic. The authors chose to compare Chiropractic care with dimethicone because, as Francine Margolius, R.N., Associate Professor Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, comments, "it has been shown to be no better than placebo treatment." 

Also of note is the fact that nine of the infants dropped out of the dimethicone treatment group due to a worsening of the infant’s symptoms. None of the infants treated with Chiropractic dropped out of care. 

SOURCE: Foundation for Chiropractic Education and Research