Colic Myths vs. Facts

Three things get said to almost every colic parent, usually within the first week: try gripe water, try gas drops, or just wait it out. Here's what happens when each of those claims meets actual trial data.

Myth: Gripe water settles the stomach. Gripe water has no randomized controlled trial evidence showing it outperforms placebo. The relief parents sometimes see is real, but it's sensory distraction (a new taste, a new sensation), not a physiological change to gut inflammation or gas production. That's why it tends to work for fifteen or twenty minutes and then stop. We break this down fully in Does Gripe Water Work?

Myth: Gas drops break up the gas causing the pain. Simethicone, the active ingredient in most gas drops, has been tested directly against placebo in a Cochrane systematic review (Biagioli E, et al. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2016) and found no statistically significant benefit. It addresses a visible symptom, gas, without addressing why the gas is being produced in the first place. See Gripe Water vs. Gas Drops for the full mechanism comparison.

Myth: It's just something you wait out, nothing really helps. This one is the most understandable, because most of what parents try genuinely doesn't work, which makes "nothing works" feel like the honest conclusion. But a 2020 systematic review in BMJ Open (Ellwood et al.) and a separate 2020 review in Acta Paediatrica (Hjern et al.) both point to real, replicated evidence for targeted interventions, not for every baby, but for a meaningful share once you know which of the three root-cause systems, gut, nervous system, or feeding mechanics, is actually driving the crying.

The pattern across all three myths is the same: the products and advice that get repeated most often are the ones addressing a visible symptom (fussiness, gas, exhaustion) rather than the underlying system producing it. The same pattern shows up with pacifiers too; see Pacifier Use and Colic for what the evidence actually says there. For what does have real evidence behind it, organized by system instead of by product, see the root-cause guide.