While the title of this blog will come as no surprise to most pediatric gastroenterologists, many parents would be surprised that a systemic review of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) showed` that proton pump inhibitors (PPI) are ineffective for crying infants (J Pediatr 2015; 166: 767-70).
In this review, only five trials (with 430 infants) met the prespecified inclusion criteria. While some trials showed a decrease in crying/irritability form baseline to the end of the intervention, a similar effect was evident in the control group. The authors found that one trial reported a higher risk of lower respiratory tract infections in the PPI group and note that “administration of PPIs is not without risk.”
Take-home message: “the limited data available suggest that PPIs are not effective for the management of crying/irritability in infants.”
Another PPI citation: Rosen R et al. J Pediatr 2015; 166: 917-23. In this study, the authors prospectively showed that PPI use was associated with differences in gastric, lung, and oropharyngeal microflora (n=116 children with 59 receiving PPIs)
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