to be annoyed about infacol

[entropygirl]

The NHS clincal evidence database says: 'Studies of simeticone have not demonstrated benefit in infantile colic.'

The infacol (simeticone) webpage says: 'Clinically proven to significantly reduce the frequency and severity of crying attacks associated with colic.'

So AIBU to be annoyed with them for extracting money from tired unhappy stressed parents when water drops work equally well?

ps. I will be taking the names of anyone who says ' but it worked for me' and enrolling them in a remedial course on statistics and in particular the concept that just because thing B happened after thing A doesnt mean that thing B was caused by thing A or in other words your DCs got better on their own.

Sorry to hear that sew. We had it for quite a while before being driven to HV. But yes the definition almost ensures that by the time your baby has qualified as collicky, you are at the end of the 4th trimester and things (i hope) start to improve.

There is a far far stronger correlation of colic with overstimulation than with wind. Our clear up of the colic coincided with (but I would never be so bold as to claim was caused by) our suddenly figuring out that the baby shouldnt be allowed to stay up all day even if she wanted to and insisting far more forcefully on daytime naps.

Worked on both of mine [hsmile]

I don't think there is anything that can cure true cases of colic. Relieve wind, yes.
DD had awful colic. Screaming almost every night for 2-3 hours for nearly ten weeks. Infacol and colief did nothing. Cranial osteopathy did nothing. The only thing that helped was her getting older and growing out of it. Maybe they should rebrand it as aimed at wind, rather than colic. It probably sells better when aimed at colic though, since a serious bout of colic will have you trying anything and paying any sum of money!

Ok points taken.

As with all advice re children though I'll reserve the right to listen, weigh up and then decide if it works in our particular case.

And I can report Infacol did.

That the problem though isn't it, I don't actually know what was wrong, but we use 'colic' to cover loads of things. I think just plain windy gets lumped into colic quite easily as does overtired like you say. Its all just a guessing game really, isn't it.

I know a few mums I know through toddlers have said 'oh, he has awful colic' and when I ask a few questions so that I can then tell them what helped us it turns out that they mean that baby cries for half an hour in the evening some days. I don't really know what colic is, but its not that!!

colic is a medical term for 'we dont know whats wrong with the baby and dont want to look useless'

thats how i explained it to my husband when our ds was diagnosed with it in the hospital (he was screaming and wouldnt stop) turned out he had a chest and throat infection..

Maryz yup the true and indisputable benefits of infacol are that it gives you something to do and maybe some hope!

fright how do you know it worked for you?

Colic is meaningless. It is not a disease or a disorder. Its a pattern. You can't cure it because you don't know what it is.

One of the studies said that giving plain water drops caused over 50% of the babies to cry less. Presumably all of those mothers (who thought they were giving simeticone) would also swear by it.

I never thought it did anything, either!

Maryz xpost but why waste money on honey when water would work :)

Sounds like you had a truly horrible time! Im so glad it stopped.

I was actually prescribed infacol by the GP. It is the most shitty useless thing ever. How the hell are you even supposed to get a breastfed baby to ingest weird orange-flavour stuff? Still, they didn't extract any money from me, just from the taxpayer. Maybe the taxpayer should complain?

ScaredBear well I guess if the over stimulation theory is correct then bonus flavours to deal with could make the situation worse. Or you could be suffering the nocebo effect. Where you can get side effects even when there is no chemically active ingredient.

I was going to post exactly as ninja. They need to market it for wind rather than colic.

My dd had colic. Screaming inconsolably from about 4pm til near3am. The only thing that ever worked was driving her around. She never produced wind from either end, has never been sicky or possetted. I tried gripe water, colief, infacol. Nothing worked and she stopped at 4 months.

But what annoyed me was everyone saying 'has she got colic, try cycling her legs, rubbing tummy etc' and they all meant wind. I'd be frustrated saying she has colic in that its inexplicable crying not colicky wind.

Worked for my ds.

Seems to really help my DD pass wind which was her main problem. At about 7 weeks she stopped pooping a number of times a day and started doing one poop every three days (still yellow, runny and not constipated), so doc said all is well. However, with this change she started really crying after passing wind. Infacol seems to really help her pass wind without pain and she poops once a day again. I run out a couple of days ago and I am starting to see a deterioration today.

Good grief I am running out of space on my statistics course.....

xkcd.com/552/

Well it works for us but we use it for wind as luckily neither of our two were / are colicky (touch wood as DD2 is only3 weeks old).

It is proven to work on relieving wind and I am guessing the reason it 'appears' to reduce colicky crying is because for some babies wind is part of the reason for the colic so relieves that aspect of it.

It stands to reason that an over-stimulated baby is going to be less grumpy than an overstimulated baby with wind.

worked for DS too, and I bought Simeticone generic stuff in Egypt too.

The best stuff ever was that Dentinox stuff! I hate the smell of dill, but BOY did that stuff sort his windypops out!