Trial reportBMC complementary and alternative medicine2011
Feeding, stooling and sleeping patterns in infants with colic--a randomized controlled trial of minimal acupuncture.
Trial report in BMC complementary and alternative medicine, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to 2 registered trials, which are not on this map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Acupuncture in Infantile Colic - a Randomised Controlled Double Blind Clinical Study
Acupuncture in Infantile Colic - A Randomised Trial.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- Acupuncture treatments for infantile colic: a systematic review and individual patient data meta-analysis of blinding test validated randomised controlled trials.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2018Pooled it
- The effect of two types of minimal acupuncture on stooling, sleeping and feeding in infants with colic: secondary analysis of a multicentre RCT in Sweden (ACU-COL).Acupuncture in medicine : journal of the British Medical Acupuncture Society · 2021Trial
- Acupuncture for the treatment of infantile colic.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2025Article
- Article
- Acupuncture for pediatric pain: The trend of evidence-based research.Journal of traditional and complementary medicine · 2020Review
- A Scoping Review of Acupuncture as a Potential Intervention for Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome.Medical acupuncture · 2019Article
- Effects of Acupuncture on Neurological Disease in Clinical- and Animal-Based Research.Frontiers in integrative neuroscience · 2019Review
- Use of Acupuncture in an Infant with Restlessness and Agitation.Medicines (Basel, Switzerland) · 2018Article
- Acupuncture for Infantile Colic: A Systematic Review of Randomised Controlled Trials.Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM · 2018Review
- Acupuncture in the neonatal intensive care unit-using ancient medicine to help today's babies: a review.Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association · 2017Review
- Acupuncture in the treatment of infantile colic.Italian journal of pediatrics · 2015Article
- Changes of locoregional skin temperature in neonates undergoing laser needle acupuncture at the acupuncture point large intestine 4.Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM · 2015Article
- Efficacy and safety of acupuncture in preterm and term infants.Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM · 2013Article
- Acupuncture in practice: investigating acupuncturists' approach to treating infantile colic.Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM · 2013Article
- Near-infrared spectroscopy for objectifying cerebral effects of laser acupuncture in term and preterm neonates.Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM · 2013Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe aim was to describe the feeding- and stooling patterns of infants with colic and evaluate the influence of minimal acupuncture.
methodsA prospective, randomized, controlled, blind clinical study was conducted at a private acupuncture clinic in Sweden. 90 otherwise healthy 2-8 weeks old infants, born after gestational week 36, fulfilling the criteria for infantile colic and not medicated with dicyclomine, were included. 81 infants went through a structured program consisting of six visits to the clinic, twice weekly. Infants randomized to receive acupuncture were given minimal, standardized acupuncture for two seconds in LI4. Frequency and size of stooling, as well as duration of, and intervals between, feeding sessions were reported by parents in a diary. Parental assessment of sleep and comments on stooling and side effects were collected in a questionnaire.
resultsAt baseline when the mean age was five weeks, infants in both groups were fed a median of eight times/day, 148 min/day, with considerable variations. No differences were found between groups in the frequency and duration of feeding during the intervention weeks. Furthermore there were no significant differences between the groups regarding the frequency of stooling, neither at baseline, at which point the infants of both groups had bowel movements 4.2 times/day, nor during the intervention weeks. There was an expected decrease in frequency of stooling in both groups, reaching 2.1 (p = 0.001) in the acupuncture group and 3.1 (p < 0.001) in the control group. The groups differed regarding large bowel movements which decreased linearly in the control group (p = 0.011) but not in the acupuncture group (p = 0.787). More parents in the acupuncture group than in the control group (28% and 15% respectively, p = 0.006) experienced the infant's sleep to be "better" or "much better." No other significant differences were found. However, parents described a normalized stooling and experienced an improvement in colic in their infants more frequently in the acupuncture group than in the control group.
conclusionsInfants with colic in the present study had a higher frequency of stooling than reported internationally in healthy infants. Minimal acupuncture had no major effect on feeding, stooling and sleep, although a minor effect of minimal acupuncture on stooling and sleep cannot be ruled out.
trial registrationClinicalTrials.govID NCT00860301.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.