Towards an Understanding of Osteopathy in the Treatment of Infantile Colic.

C.J.HAYDEN, M.Sc.,D.O., D. Prashad, S.P.Patel, R.Molinari D.O.,

ABSTRACT
Infantile colic is a widely reported, multifactorial condition of young infants that causes much distress and anxiety to the child and family alike, and which has challenged the efficacy of orthodox medical treatment over the years.

This investigation was designed to explore the use of Cranial Osteopathic treatment in the control and/or alleviation of this condition. In this context a prospective, randomised, controlled study of infants (n=28; mean age 45.5 days) suffering from infantile colic as defined by accepted criteria was employed. The study proposal was validated by the West Gloucestershire Local Research and Ethics Board (LREC), U.K, and carried out in a single centre. Recruitment of suitable cases was through GP practices of Gloucester and Cheltenham, and by self-referral.

28 infants under 3 months old were randomly separated into control and test groups.
The parents of both groups of infants were asked to complete a questionnaire about birth details, behaviour during a colic attack, sleeping and feeding patterns and past medical history. In addition a24-hour daily diary was provided for completion of the 4-week period of the study. The infants were medically examined before confirmation of their inclusion in the study was given. All infants were seen once per week for 4 weeks. Over this period the test recipients received 30 minutes of osteopathic treatment per week.

The results show that in the osteopathically treated group there was a progressive highly significant reduction to about 63% (p<0.001) in crying frequency from weeks 1-4. The control group over this period showed only a 23% non-significant reduction. The slight reduction in the latter group may be attributable to a natural history of improvement over time. In terms of the profile of sleep patterns, the test group showed a greater than 11% highly significant increase (p<0.002) in restful sleep from weeks 1-4, compared with the control group where the sleeping time increase was only of the order of 1%.

Further analysis of the data revealed a significant (p<0.014) reciprocal relationship between sleeping and crying, only in the osteopathically treated group. The infants in the test group also required less nursing care and attention during wakefulness and appeared to exhibit a lower level of colic behaviour not classified by crying. Moreover a qualitative assessment of the infants based on observations in the daily diaries showed that the test group infants appear to enjoy a better quality of restful sleep.

These preliminary findings indicate that over a relatively short 4-week period, osteopathic treatment significantly reduces crying frequency, and increases the duration of restful sleep in these infants.

KEY WORDS: Infantile Colic, Cranial Osteopathic manipulation.

162 / the Journal of Manual & Manipulative Therapy. 2002 (October)