Acupuncture Cuts Crying in Colicky Infants

Infants receiving acupuncture showed significant reductions in colic (defined as crying or fussing that exceeds 3 hours per day for more than 3 days a week) after 2 weeks compared to infants receiving no acupuncture but a high level of care otherwise, reported Kajsa Landgren, RN, and Inger Hallström, RCSN, of Lund University in Sweden.

Notably, there was also a significant reduction in the portion of infants who met the criteria for colic after 2 weeks of versus no-acupuncture controls (38% versus 65%, P=0.003), they wrote in Acupuncture Medicine (a BMJ specialty journal).

The authors noted that these findings may be “clinically relevant” for parents, because reduction in crying is the difference between having a baby with colic and one without, and thus “acupuncture might have a role in shortening the strenuous period of colic,” they argued.

They said that, because of the positive effects of acupuncture in reducing pain, restoring gastrointestinal function and having “a calming effect,” the treatment has previously been used to treat colic in infants. But prior randomized trials on the effects of acupuncture on colic had produced mixed results about its effectiveness.

Unlike previous studies, which had been conducted in private clinics, this multi-center randomized trial (the ACU-COL study) examined 144 infants from 2 to 8 weeks old who fulfilled the criteria for colic, and were otherwise healthy and gaining weight at a normal pace. In addition to standard care, all infants received “gold standard” care — four extra visits (two per week) to child health centers for advice and support.

Infants were then randomized into three groups, with nurses and parents blinded to treatment group.

• Standardized minimal acupuncture at LI4 (superficial insertion of needles)
• Semi-standardized individual acupuncture inspired by Traditional Chinese Medicine
• No acupuncture

At follow-up, there was a significant reduction in the total number of minutes of “colicky crying” in the combined acupuncture groups compared to the “gold standard” care only group compared to baseline (3 minutes per day versus 13 minutes per day, respectively, P=0.028).

There was also a significant difference compared to baseline in the amount of total crying per day between the acupuncture and no-acupuncture groups groups for the second intervention week (137 minutes versus 176 minutes, respectively, P=0.020).

In terms of total crying duration and time spent crying, fussing, or colicky crying, there were significant differences between the combined acupuncture group and the no-acupuncture group during the second intervention week and at follow-up.

During the 388 acupuncture treatments given in total, infants did not cry at all on more than half of these occasions. Infants cried for up to a minute during 157 treatments and more than a minute (mean 2.7 minutes) during 31. Overall, acupuncturists reported “a single drop of blood” on 15 occasions, with one parent reporting blood on an infant’s clothes and one reporting “a mark” on the infant’s hand.

One important limitation to the findings was that the treatment groups were too small to detect differences in types of minimal acupuncture, and had to be merged to increase statistical power of the findings.

“If acupuncture is found safe and effective, it should be offered as standard treatment,” the authors concluded, adding that further research may be needed to examine optimal needling locations, stimulation and treatment intervals.

• Reviewed by F. Perry Wilson, MD, MSCEAssistant Professor, Section of Nephrology, Yale School of Medicine and Dorothy Caputo, MA, BSN, RN, Nurse Planner