The University College of Osteopathy (UCO) and the National Council for Osteopathic Research (NCOR) are pleased to announce a new 'Crying, Unsettled and DisTressed Infants: Effectiveness Study' - the CUTIES trial.
The trial team has secured resources to conduct a randomised controlled trial to assess the effectiveness of osteopathic care for the treatment of distressed, unsettled and excessively crying infants (babies with colic/silent reflux).
Professor Dawn Carnes, Director of NCOR and Professorial Research Fellow at the UCO, is leading the trial which will be funded by NCOR and sponsored by the UCO. The European School of Osteopathy has confirmed their collaboration, and the team has also established links with osteopathic universities in Australia and Switzerland as potential recruiting sites, making this a multi-centred international study.
Professor Carnes said:
“We are now recruiting infants into the CUTIES study. We have 2 recruiting sites up and running in Borough, London at the University College of Osteopathy clinic and in Maidstone at the European School of Osteopathy clinic. We also have some CUTIES trained osteopaths working in Kent, the Midlands, South West and Scotland.”
The project has received UCO and NHS ethics approval to carry out the study and the trial is now registered on the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry.
We are looking for babies less than 10 weeks old, who cry excessively and are difficult to console. Excessive crying is considered to be, more than 3 hours per day for 3 days or more a week. are investigating whether osteopathic care is effective in helping babies cry less. CUTIES researchers would like to study whether an osteopathic approach using gentle ‘hands-on’ techniques works in providing some relief.
The results will help parents in the future decide what treatments are best for their babies.
Taking part would mean that your baby would have an initial consultation to check that they are eligible to be in the study and then they would be given one of two different approaches being studied (non-specific light touch or light osteopathic touch). Your baby would receive up to 4 treatments over a 2 week period with an experienced, registered and specifically trained osteopath.
All treatment will be free but we will ask that you (the parent or guardian) to fill in a crying diary for 14 days, to monitor the amount of time your baby cries (5-10 minutes per day) and you will also be asked to fill in 2 short questionnaires at the beginning and end of the study (each taking 5 minutes to complete).
If you are interested or know any parents who might be interested please see the recruitment poster below and get in contact with the either:
UCO Clinic, 98-118 Southwark Bridge Rd, London SE1 0BQ, Tel: 0207089 5360
or
ESO clinic, 104 Tonbridge Rd, Maidstone, Kent ME16 8SL, Tel 01622 685989
or
Prof. Dawn Carnes, the study lead: Email: dawn.carnes@uco.ac.uk or Tel: +44 (0)20 7089 5330