Infantile
Colic Improved with Chiropractic
The
National Health Service in Ballerup (Copenhagen, Denmark) conducted a
study involving 50 infants with diagnoses infantile colic. Half of the group was given the drug dimethicon while the
other half was given chiropractic care.
In this study nine of the 25 taking the drug dropped out of the
study because the infants were getting worse.
These infants were then not counted in the final results which
would have shown a worse result for the drug than published.
Even
with the removal from the tabulations of the infants who got worst using
the drug, the results showed a significant improvement in the group that
were under chiropractic care. By
days 4 to 7 of the study, the infants remaining in the drug group had
reduced their hours of crying by only one hour while the entire
chiropractic group had reduced crying hours by an average of 2.4 hours.
The results after 8 to 10 day into the study continued to show the
drug therapy infants at a one hour improvement while the chiropractic
group further improved to 2.7 hours less of crying.
The researchers noted that the removal from the study of the
infants that got worse from the drug made the results from the drug look
better than they actually were.
Chiropractic Care Conquers Colic
The above title appeared in the December 1998 issue of Country Living's
Healthy Living, beginning on page 53. The article details the concerns of a mom whose new
baby was suffering from colic. The article featured the mothers account of the
situation starting from her initial phone call to the pediatrician. "When I phoned
my doctor to ask if he thought it was safe (to see a chiropractor), he was ambivalent:
Chiropractic would neither harm nor help. He told me that if it was colic, it would run
its course in three months."
After this advice, her next stop was to take the child to the
chiropractor. She recalled that the first visit was an extended one with a lot of time
spent caring for the child and the parents. Following the first adjustment, the child
seemed to be more reactive and colicky, but she followed the instructions given her by the
chiropractor and the baby calmed right down. "We had five more sessions with the
chiropractor. Each lasted 20 minutes and Lucy (the infant!) really seemed to enjoy them.
It completely changed what was fast becoming a nightmare. I'd like to recommend to
everyone with a colicky infant see a chiropractor. It certainly worked for us."
Infantile Colic
Probably one of the most frustrating situations new parents find
themselves in is having to deal with a child that is suffering from colic. For these
parents a recent study conducted in South Africa offers some good news. In a study by
Mercer and Cook, thirty infants who had been diagnosed medically with colic were randomly
divided into two groups. One group received chiropractic care while the other group did
not. All infants in this study were newborn to 8 weeks old and had been diagnosed with
colic by a pediatrician. For the purposes of this study, the infants in the chiropractic
group received care for a two-week period with a maximum of six adjustments. The results
of the study were very impressive. In the group that received chiropractic care, there was
complete resolution of symptoms in 93% of the infants within the two-week period. Even
more impressive was that in a follow up survey performed one month later, none of the
infants had experienced a reoccurrence of problems from colic. The chiropractic care
rendered in this study was spinal adjusting.
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