Trial reportAcupuncture in medicine : journal of the British Medical Acupuncture Society2017
Effect of minimal acupuncture for infantile colic: a multicentre, three-armed, single-blind, randomised controlled trial (ACU-COL).
Trial report in Acupuncture in medicine : journal of the British Medical Acupuncture Society, 2017. 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 14 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 Three Armed Randomized Multi Center Trial Comparing Acupuncture in a Standardized Point, Acupuncture in Individually Chosen Points and no Acupuncture
Acupuncture in Infantile Colic - A Randomised Trial.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 46 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
- The effect of infantile colic training given to parents on the neonatal infantile colic level and crying duration.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Acupuncture for the treatment of infantile colic.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2025Article
- A pilot study of parents' experiences of reflexology treatment for infants with colic in Finland.Scandinavian journal of caring sciences · 2020Article
- Acupuncture for pediatric pain: The trend of evidence-based research.Journal of traditional and complementary medicine · 2020Review
- Complementary and alternative medicine experiences of mothers in the treatment of infantile colic.Sudanese journal of paediatrics · 2020Article
- An overview of systematic reviews of complementary and alternative therapies for infantile colic.Systematic reviews · 2019Review
- A Scoping Review of Acupuncture as a Potential Intervention for Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome.Medical acupuncture · 2019Article
- Approach to infantile colic in primary care.Singapore medical journal · 2019Article
- Infantile Colic: New Insights into an Old Problem.Gastroenterology clinics of North America · 2018Review
- Infant colic: mechanisms and management.Nature reviews. Gastroenterology & hepatology · 2018Review
- Acupuncture for Infantile Colic: A Systematic Review of Randomised Controlled Trials.Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM · 2018Review
- Pediatric Acupuncture Safety: A Scoping Review.Global advances in integrative medicine and healthArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundEvidence for treating infantile colic with acupuncture is contradictory.
aimTo evaluate and compare the effect of two types of acupuncture versus no acupuncture in infants with colic in public child health centres (CHCs).
methodsA multicentre, randomised controlled, single-blind, three-armed trial (ACU-COL) comparing two styles of acupuncture with no acupuncture, as an adjunct to standard care, was conducted. Among 426 infants whose parents sought help for colic and registered their child's fussing/crying in a diary, 157 fulfilled the criteria for colic and 147 started the intervention. All infants received usual care plus four extra visits to CHCs with advice/support (twice a week for 2 weeks), comprising gold standard care. The infants were randomly allocated to three groups: (A) standardised minimal acupuncture at LI4; (B) semi-standardised individual acupuncture inspired by Traditional Chinese Medicine; and (C) no acupuncture. The CHC nurses and parents were blinded. Acupuncture was given by nurses with extensive experience of acupuncture.
resultsThe effect of the two types of acupuncture was similar and both were superior to gold standard care alone. Relative to baseline, there was a greater relative reduction in time spent crying and colicky crying by the second intervention week (p=0.050) and follow-up period (p=0.031), respectively, in infants receiving either type of acupuncture. More infants receiving acupuncture cried <3 hours/day, and thereby no longer fulfilled criteria for colic, in the first (p=0.040) and second (p=0.006) intervention weeks. No serious adverse events were reported.
conclusionsAcupuncture appears to reduce crying in infants with colic safely. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT01761331; Results.
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Identifiers
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.