Many parents will have experience of their baby suffering bouts of obvious distress for no apparent reason in its first three or four months. These often occur in the afternoon or evening, with inconsolable, often high-pitched, crying and accompanying symptoms that may include redness of the face, drawing up of the knees and flatus.

Infantile, or baby, colic is officially defined as distress or crying which lasts for more than three hours a day, for more than three days a week, for at least three weeks in an otherwise healthy infant.¹ But even if the features are not so severe, the condition can be as distressing to parents as to their baby and many will seek a pharmacist’s advice and OTC treatment.