Babies with infantile colic cry a lot. It is hard for parents to watch. A study looked at a gentle approach called therapeutic touch. This method uses caring touch based on Watson's Human Care Theory. Ninety-six infants aged four to eight weeks took part. They were seen in a hospital outpatient pediatric unit. The babies received touch therapy three times per week for one or two weeks. The other group received usual care only. Researchers watched crying time and sleep time for eight weeks. The results were clear. Babies who got the touch therapy cried less than those in the control group. They also slept more. Scores on the Infant Colic Scale improved for the treated babies. The differences between groups were large and statistically significant. No adverse events were reported. The study found strong evidence that this gentle care helps. It offers a new way to support families dealing with the stress of colic.
Therapeutic Touch Reduces Crying and Improves Sleep in Infants With ColicTherapeutic touch reduces crying in babies with colic
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This randomized controlled trial enrolled 96 infants aged 4 to 8 weeks who met Rome IV criteria for infantile colic. Participants were assigned to receive therapeutic touch based on Watson's Human Care Theory (3 times per week for 1 or 2 weeks) or usual care only. The study was conducted in a hospital outpatient pediatric unit.
The primary outcome was crying time. Infants receiving therapeutic touch showed statistically significant reductions in crying compared with the control group (group × time interaction: F = 222.612; p < .001; η² = 0.827). Secondary outcomes included sleep time and Infant Colic Scale (ICS) scores, both of which also improved significantly (sleep: F = 47.244; p < .001; η² = 0.504; ICS: F = 219.247; p < .001; η² = 0.825). All effect sizes were large. Absolute crying and sleep times were not reported.
Safety and tolerability were not reported, and no adverse events or discontinuations were mentioned. The study did not report funding or conflicts of interest. Limitations include lack of blinding, small sample size, and absence of absolute outcome values, which limits clinical interpretability.
Clinicians should interpret these results cautiously. While therapeutic touch may offer a nonpharmacologic approach for infantile colic, the evidence is preliminary and requires confirmation in larger, blinded trials with standardized outcome measures.
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