Breast-fed infants with colic may be treated with probiotics

Probiotics may be an effective treatment for exclusively breast-fed crying infants with colic, according to recent study findings published in JAMA Pediatrics.

The meta-analysis included 12 studies that randomly assigned 1,825 infants aged 3 months or younger to oral probiotics or placebo.

Researchers found that six of the studies showed evidence that probiotics reduced crying. Three of five management trials also showed that probiotics treated colic in breast-fed patients; one showed possible evidence for treating colic in formula-fed patients, and the last showed no effectiveness in treating breast-fed patients with colic.

A meta-analysis of three trials resulted in findings that Lactobacillus reuteri reduced crying time at 21 days in breast-fed patients with colic.

“This review reflects the current general consensus that, even though the use of a specific strain of probiotic (L. reuteri) in breast-fed term infants with colic is promising, there is still insufficient evidence to support the general use of probiotics in all infants with colic or to recommend its use in preventing colic,” the researchers wrote. “Larger and more rigorously designed randomized clinical trials are needed to examine the efficacy of the probiotic L. reuteri in the management of breast-fed and particularly formula-fed infants with colic and in the prevention of colic in health term infants.”

Disclosure: See the study for a full list of disclosures.

Published by:

Sources/Disclosures

Collapse

Source:

Sung V. JAMA Pediatr. 2013;doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.2572.