Chiropractic Found Effective for Infantile Colicby Dr. Scott J.
Heun
A randomized, controlled clinical trial on colic in Denmark that compared
chiropractic adjustments to daily doses of dimethicone has concluded:
"Spinal manipulation has a positive short-term effect on infantile colic."1
Infantile colic is a curious and mysterious condition. It is estimated that,
on average, 22.5% of all newborns suffer from colic, defined as "uncontrollable
crying in babies from 0-3 months old, more than three hours a day, more than
three days a week for three weeks or more, usually in the afternoon and evening
hours." But only "47 percent of infantile colic cases have disappeared by the
age of three months, a further 41 percent disappeared before six months of age,
and the remaining 12 percent of cases persevered until between the ages of 6 and
12 months." First described in 1894, colic has no verified cause(s). Countless
studies have, however, determined what it is not caused by: air or constrictions
in the intestines; gastrointestinal transit time; intestinal hormones;
intestinal microflora; method of delivery (vaginal, Cesarean section or vacuum
extraction); use of pudendal block; epidural analgesia; general anesthesia; or
intravenous oxytocin.
Numerous medical and nonmedical treatments have been studied, including:
music and sounds; vibration; dicyclomine hydrochloride; gripe-water; alcohol;
atropine; skopyl; phenobarbital; merperidine; homatropine; and merbentyl.
These treatments have shown either "no effect when compared to placebo
treatment" or "serious side effects."
Treatment with sucrose does seem to have a "generalized analgesic effect in
infants and may therefore also help in infantile colic." Dimethicone, the drug
used in this randomized trial, has been shown to be "no better than placebo
treatment" in several good controlled studies.
The first retrospective chiropractic study on treating colic was conducted in
1985, followed by a prospective multicenter study in 1989. "Both studies suggest
that there seems to be a positive effect of spinal manipulation for infantile
colic," but since neither study had a control group, it was impossible to assess
whether the chiropractic treatments were significantly better than placebo.
The Danish National Health Service recruited 50 infants meeting the criteria
for colic. After they were reviewed and monitored, they were randomly assigned
to two groups: dimethicone daily for two weeks or spinal manipulation for two
weeks by a local chiropractor. The 25 infants under chiropractic care received
motion palpation to locate "articulations" mostly found in the upper and
mid-thoracic area. The infants in the chiropractic group received an average of
3.8 adjustments. During the two-week treatments, the parents kept a colic diary
and nurses visited the families to administer a weekly "infantile colic behavior
profile."
The results were: The dimethicone group would have fared much worse than
these results suggest if not for the dropout rate of the medicated group. All 25
infants in the manipulation group completed the 13 days of treatment, but there
were nine dropouts in the dimethicone group: five dropped out before the first
week's diary could be completed, and thus there was no data on the hours of
crying for those five subjects. But the study did register the subjective
evaluation of four of the five in the dimethicone group that quit in the first
week: two described their child's condition as "worsened" and two others
described it as "much worsened." Had these four infants completed the study,
they would have significantly affected the limited positive effect of
dimethicone.
To quote the authors:
