Health Library

In the April 11, 2002, issues of CNN Interactive and Web MD, a story about children and colic provides an unusual perspective, where many medical opinions admit that the traditional medical approach is ineffective, yet acknowledge that chiropractic care helped infants with colic. However, the articles stop short of fully endorsing chiropractic care.

Dr. Maxine McMullen, a chiropractor in Davenport, Iowa, and president of the International Chiropractic Association’s Pediatric Council, is quoted in the article, stating, “I’ve helped hundreds of babies with colic, every one of them simply needed a spinal adjustment.”

The article also references a study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics. In the study, 25 randomly selected colicky infants received three to five chiropractic adjustments over two weeks. By the end of the study, diaries kept by parents revealed that the babies’ daily crying episodes shortened by three hours. In contrast, 20 infants who took dimethicone saw their crying decrease by only one hour. A previous study published in the August 1989 issue of the same journal also showed that chiropractic care reduced crying in 316 colicky babies.

The tone of the article seems almost begrudging in reporting the success of chiropractic care for infants with colic. Several MDs remain skeptical of chiropractic care for children. One part of the article attempts to explain the results by suggesting that infants with colic may be suffering from back pain, and that chiropractic care alleviates this pain. However, most chiropractors reject this explanation and attribute the improvement to the removal of interference in the nervous system, known as subluxation.

Despite the negative tone from some medical practitioners, none could dispute the fact that medical treatments were generally ineffective, while chiropractic care helped the infants.