Fennel for Infant Colic

Research suggests that fennel-containing preparations may help reduce crying time in infants with colic, based on a 2016 systematic review and meta-analysis that pooled findings from three relevant studies and found an average reduction of approximately 72 minutes of crying per day. This meta-analysis, which also examined a range of other interventions including probiotics and dietary changes, found that fennel preparations showed one of the stronger signals among the remedies evaluated. Studies indicate the overall direction of evidence is promising, though the authors of the review themselves noted that the number of contributing studies was small and that further high-quality clinical trials are needed before firm conclusions can be drawn. The available evidence base is therefore limited in scope, and readers should weigh these findings accordingly.