RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
Let's turn now to a disturbing problem for a lot of new parents - colicky babies. Babies suffering from colic cry incessantly, and it's a piercing cry; and parents can find themselves helpless to soothe the infant.
Now, research suggests that probiotics can help reduce colic in babies, and maybe even help prevent it. NPR's Rob Stein takes a look.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: When Melissa Shenewa and her husband imagined their first weeks with their new baby, they pictured hours of cuddling. Instead, they're enduring hours of this.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY CRYING)
STEIN: Their 6-week-old son, Aladdin, is a colicky baby. He cries for hours, and nothing seems to help. Melissa Shenewa is often in tears.
MELISSA SHENEWA: (Crying) And being a parent when your child is screaming in pain for hours on end and there's nothing you can do, you feel helpless. You feel like you're not a good parent.
STEIN: The Shenewas are far from alone. Colic affects between 8 and 15 percent of babies. And Marc Rhoades, of the University of Texas in Houston, says it can be devastating.
MARC RHOADS: It's been linked to parental depression, and even thoughts of infanticide. So it's a huge problem.
STEIN: It's unclear what causes colic. But evidence, mostly from Europe, suggests there might be something that could help: probiotics. Several studies have found that probiotics can reduce how much colicky babies cry. And a new study published last week found a probiotic seems to prevent colic in the first place. Flavia Indrio, of the University of Bari in Italy, led that study.
DR. FLAVIA INDRIO: We do find that the baby who took the probiotic since the first week of life, they develop less number of colic and constipation in the first month of life. So they improve - at least, the symptoms.
STEIN: Giving babies friendly bacteria could help their digestive systems develop the right way. Robert Shulman is a pediatrician at the Baylor College of Medicine.
DR. ROBERT SHULMAN: There's a number of effects that we know probiotics can have; for example, affecting the immune system, affecting the barrier function of the intestine, affecting the other bacteria that live in the intestine. Now, we don't really know in babies for sure with colic, how these probiotics are actually working.
STEIN: Shulman and others caution that much more research is needed before anyone really knows for sure that they can help - and which probiotics really work, if they do. And while they seem safe, it's too soon to know for sure that there aren't any long-term risks.
SHULMAN: We don't really know what it means to change the bacteria in these young infants; how that might affect their immune function down the road, and so forth.
STEIN: So Marc Rhoads - at the University of Texas - is doing a new study, testing a probiotic on colicky babies like Aladdin Shenewa. He wants to confirm the European research in this country. Melissa Shenewa signed up her baby.
SHENEWA: So we're just waiting on that to kick in and hopefully - hopefully - it works.
STEIN: There are many probiotics already being sold in drugstores and supermarkets. And even some skeptics say they'd probably try one if they had a colicky baby.
Rob Stein, NPR News.