Soothing a crying baby

Most of the listed research looks at infantile colic. Randomized trials have examined colic massage with kangaroo care, foot reflexology and therapeutic touch, and systematic reviews and meta-analyses have examined probiotics and lactase. A meta-analysis reports that complementary and alternative medicines were not effective for infantile colic, and another systematic review looks at complementary and alternative therapies as a group. Reviews of reviews and guidelines compare common interventions, and a systematic review covers prevention and treatment.

A trial of a responsive parenting intervention for Black mothers looks at how mothers respond to infant crying, which shifts the question from the baby to the caregiver.

Parents commonly ask why a baby cries, whether it is colic and what helps. The research on many of these approaches continues, and results across the titles vary in how settled they are. An educator may want slides that describe soothing as a set of options and that note how tiring prolonged crying can be for caregivers. The papers below are the ones the Hub tracks on this topic.