Colic

by Joel Alcantara, DC

In December 2008, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released the National Health Statistics Report on the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use by adults and children in the United States for 2007. The authors—Patricia Barnes and colleagues—found that when it comes to children, the most common CAM therapies are natural products and chiropractic spinal manipulations. These findings are not surprising to most chiropractors and their patients. Chiropractors attend to the care of children for a variety of conditions, including asthma, ear infections, ADHD, autism, and the focus of this article: colic. Commonly defined as “unexplainable and uncontrollable crying in babies from 0 to 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”, colic is such a common condition of childhood that it is said to affect some 16 to 26 percent of children in their first year of life. Mistakenly identified as a benign condition of childhood, the condition is stressful to both parents and healthcare providers alike. Parent-child interactions have been found to be less than optimal when a child has colic. Afflicted families experience more problems in their daily functioning than families without colicky infants. Further, colicky infants may be at greater risk of child abuse and Shaken Baby Syndrome.
Given the lack of effectiveness of various pharmaceutical interventions in the treatment of infantile colic and concerns about adverse effects of these drugs, parents are turning to chiropractic for an alternative approach to care. Pharmaceuticals like simethicone, dicyclomine, and methylscopolamine have been found in randomized controlled clinical trials to be either ineffective or unsafe for use in infants with colic. Adverse effects associated with these medications include drowsiness, constipation, and diarrhea, as well as more serious effects such as apnea, seizures, and coma.