In this July 12, 2009 family photo provided by her father Rodney, Roxy Sterbenz wears headphones to listen to white noise downloaded by her parents in an attempt to get Roxy to stop crying, at her home in Queens, N.Y. She listened quietly for a few mintues, and resumed crying. Parents will try almost anything to quiet fussy babies with colic, but a review of medical literature says there’s little evidence that popular folk remedies work. The results don’t surprise the parents of Roxy, who they say she cried almost nonstop for six months. (AP Photo/Rodney Sterbenz)CHICAGO – That nonstop crying of a baby with colic has some parents turning to popular folk remedies. Unfortunately, there’s no good evidence they work, according to a review of 15 studies.
The results don’t surprise New York City mom Leni Calas, 32. She tried many treatments studied, including fennel extract, sugar drops and massage, and says nothing worked for baby Roxy, who cried almost nonstop for six months.
“Our daughter would wake up and cry literally morning to night without napping,” Calas said. “She would just literally scream herself purple, and then throw up because she had been screaming so much.”
Calas said she and her husband couldn’t accept what doctors told them – that there was nothing wrong with their baby and that she’d outgrow the crying spells. But that’s exactly what happened.
And that’s what most doctors believe about colic, which affects up to roughly 20 percent of U.S. babies, usually in the first few months of life.