Infantile Colic & Chiropractic
Colic in infants is defined as excessive crying in an otherwise healthy and thriving baby.
The crying typically starts within the first few weeks of life and seems to ease up by age 4-6 months. Colic in their baby causes 1 in 6 families (nearly 20%) to seek a health professional and can be very straining to parents and caretakers.
When it comes to medical help for colic in infants, there seems to be little to no effective medical intervention. This is often very frustrating and nerve wracking for new parents who are not only losing sleep themselves, but also trying to get through the 4-5 hours of excessive crying of their new baby while being unable to calm their baby. Formulas are often switched again and again if the baby is not being breast-fed, and medications like simethicone, dimethicone, dicyclomine, and cimetropium bromide, which are used to reduce intestinal gas and/or relieve bowl muscle spasms have shown only little to no effectiveness in reducing the excessive crying. Some studies cite a decrease crying up to only one hour.
Dr. Maxine McMullen, former president of the International Chiropractic Association’s Pediatric Council, left a legacy of love, leadership, compassion, and help to families and chiropractic students in her care for children and infants. Dr. McMullen, was an amazing woman, whom I had the privilege of hearing speak many times while studying at Palmer College of Chiropractic, and who helped many families dealing with infantile colic. She had also helped many chiropractic students care for and analyze and treat spinal misalignments in infants and children. She said in issues of CNN Interactive and Web MD, “I have helped hundreds of babies with colic, every one of them simply needed a spinal adjustment.”
While many medical doctors are still skeptical of children receiving chiropractic care, studies show that chiropractic adjustments are much more effective in reducing infant crying episodes than medical intervention. According to parents who kept diaries of crying episodes, studies show crying episodes in their infant decreased by three hours per day for those infants who received chiropractic care, while those who received medication shortened crying by only one hour. I remember one of the first babies that I adjusted who suffered from colic. Her mother brought her in to see me after being referred in by her grandmother. She was crying 4-5 hours every night and had gone through the routine medical treatment of switching formulas and was also on an anti-gas medication. X-rays, and spinal examination revealed an upper neck misalignment and a reduction of spinal curve. Within three to five gentle spinal adjustments, her crying decreased significantly to just several minutes at a time. It took only several weeks longer to restore the important curve in her neck.
I met a young man nearly sixteen this winter who was nearly half the size of his age and was in a wheel chair with clear mental and physical disabilities as a result of being shaken as a baby. It brings me to tears sometimes thinking about all of the infants who suffer and who have suffered greatly at the hands of parents and caretakers who are beyond frustrated by the continuous crying of their little one who may just need to be adjusted by a chiropractor to fix what is wrong in their spine. Much education and books are given about shaken baby syndrome, and medical care is usually someone’s first and only step, which isn’t usually all that effective. Maybe all that baby needs are some chiropractic adjustments to fix the spinal misalignment(s) causing all of that crying so share this with people you know or whom you may come across who are struggling to get through the days and nights with their new little one.