Infantile Colic Part 1 - What is it and why does it happen?

Anytime a baby is upset, seemingly in pain, and crying inconsolably it will create heartache for the parents. The heartache becomes so much worse when it's happening consistently due to their baby suffering from infantile colic.

So what is infantile colic? The medical diagnosis of colic is given when a baby cries inconsolably for more than 3 hours a day; for 3 or more days a week; for at least 3 weeks (The 3/3/3 rule)

It affects up to 40% infants worldwide, peaks at 6 weeks and usually resolves by 3-6 months of age

It often causes physical and emotional stress for the parents and can regularly lead to marital or job disruption, and it is even linked to child abuse!

Possibly the most frustrating thing of all is that we don’t even know the true cause. Also frustrating is that medical interventions are generally ineffective.

A number of theories do exist as to why some kids experience colic, including: alterations in fecal microflora; lactose intolerance; maternal smoking; poor feeding techniques; and a whole variety of other combined causes. But the reality is we really don’t know why it happens.

Current medical treatment often involves various different medications, but the current systematic reviews in the literature show the outcomes of these medications to be no better than placebo (meaning that in the various studies conducted, the group of infants receiving an actual medication had no different outcome to the group that received the "sham" or control medication, which is usually a benign sugar pill). 

This means that when a drug is prescribed for your baby to treat the colic, there's poor, or no evidence to back that treatment up!

There is some support in the literature that probiotics may be helpful for breastfed infants but may not be as useful in formula fed babies. Please note that from a clinical perspective we have often noted that many babies (both breastfed or formula fed) do improve when a good quality probiotic is used, but not enough research has been done on specific types to really test how effective it is for colic, but it's a very safe first step to try, in our opinion.

So the current primary medical treatment outside of prescribing medication is to offer parental reassurance that colic is relatively benign and that their child will likely grow out of it. 

This answer isn’t a good enough solution for most parents so they start turning to alternative options like Chiropractic. And the good news? There’s a growing body of literature suggesting that Chiropractors can in fact help!

In part 2 of our Colic series we will talk about a couple of key pieces in the literature showing how Chiropractic can in fact often help relieve the symptoms of colic!