A review of the evidence on the use of complementary and alternative (CAM) therapies to treat babies with colic has shown some that some treatments—including probiotics, fennel extract and spinal manipulation—do appear to help, but that overall the evidence on the use of these therapies is limited so should be treated with caution.

Researchers reviewed published ‘systematic reviews’ on the use of CAM therapies to treat babies with colic. Systematic reviews bring together all the studies on a topic, to understand the totality of the evidence available.

Colic can be distressing for both babies and parents, but it’s not clear what causes it. This makes treating it difficult, and many parents resort to CAM therapies because of this lack of conventional treatments.

The review included 16 systematic reviews on a variety of therapies, including probiotics, herbal medicine, acupuncture and manipulation such as chiropractic massage. The researchers found that while probiotics, fennel extract and spinal manipulation all showed promise as treatments, these results should be treated with caution because of issues with the studies. These issues included small sample sizes, possible bias in the findings and the measurement of outcomes through parent diaries that are highly subjective.

Chiropractic care affects the central nervous system, and certainly when the signals it is sending from the body to the brain are less than uniform, the central nervous system will not perform at its optimum, even if the one suffering can’t do anything but literally cry about it!

Presented as a service to the community by: Union County Chiropractic Clinic, 110 Skyline Drive, Maynardville, TN (865) 992-7000 www.unioncountychiropractic.com.