Almost every parent of a newborn has stood in a dark passage at two in the morning with a baby who will not settle, wondering whether this is normal. Usually it is. Crying peaks at around six weeks and settles by three or four months, and the pattern has a name — the "rule of threes": more than three hours a day, more than three days a week, for more than three weeks.
That does not make it easy. Persistent crying is one of the strongest predictors of maternal exhaustion and low mood, and it is among the most common reasons a family looks for help of any kind.
Colic and reflux are not the same thing
Colic is a description, not a diagnosis. It describes a healthy, growing baby who cries a great deal. No single cause has ever been established, and that is the honest starting point for any conversation about it.
Reflux is the return of stomach contents into the oesophagus. Almost all babies do it — posseting after a feed is normal and needs no treatment. It becomes gastro-oesophageal reflux disease only when it causes poor weight gain, feed refusal, or persistent distress, and that is a medical diagnosis made by a doctor.
The distinction matters because the two are treated very differently, and because acid-suppressing medication is prescribed to unsettled babies far more often than the evidence supports.
What the evidence says about manual therapy
This is where the association would rather be straightforward than persuasive.
Several trials have looked at manual therapy for excessively crying infants. Some report a reduction in crying time; others find no difference once the parent does not know which group their baby is in. The most recent systematic reviews describe the overall evidence as low quality and inconsistent, with small studies and a real possibility that parents' expectations account for part of what is measured.
A practitioner who tells you chiropractic care treats colic is going beyond what the research supports. One who says some babies seem more comfortable afterwards, that the evidence is weak, and that they will refer you on if nothing changes, is describing the situation accurately.
What a careful practitioner does offer is a thorough physical assessment. An unsettled baby is sometimes an uncomfortable baby, and discomfort can have a mechanical component — a strong head-turning preference, tightness after a long or assisted delivery, difficulty with one side of a feed. Those are findings worth identifying, and some respond to gentle work.
The things that matter more
- Feeding assessment. A poor latch, over-supply and tongue restriction all produce an unsettled, windy baby. This is the first thing worth checking, and a lactation consultant is often the right person to see before anybody else.
- Feeding position. More upright during, and for twenty minutes after, reduces discomfort for many babies at no cost.
- Cow's milk protein allergy. Present in roughly two to three in every hundred infants, and a genuine cause of persistent crying, particularly alongside eczema, mucous or blood in the stool.
- Your own support. The exhaustion is part of the clinical picture, not a side issue.
When to see a doctor, not a chiropractor
Take your baby to a doctor promptly if there is a fever in a baby under three months, vomiting that is forceful or green, blood in the stool, poor weight gain, a baby who has become floppy or difficult to rouse, or a change in the cry to something high-pitched and unlike them.
Those are not signs to work through with any manual therapy, and a practitioner registered with the AHPCSA is required to recognise them and refer.
A reasonable way to approach it
Ask for a clear assessment and a clear plan with a defined end point — two or three visits, then a review. If nothing has changed, it has not worked, and a practitioner worth seeing will say so rather than sell you a package. Ask what they found, what they expect to change, and when you should be concerned enough to see a doctor instead.
Most of all: the crying does end. Knowing that does not make the nights shorter, but it is true.
