Doctors could consider including probiotics as part of a management strategy for recurrent abdominal pain in children, with a Cochrane review showing the treatment improved pain. 

Three months after taking probiotics, most commonly Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, children were significantly more likely to have improvements in pain than those taking a placebo, with an odds ratio of 1.63.

Taking probiotics was also associated with reductions in pain frequency and intensity, but this evidence was of low quality, the review by researchers from the University of Exeter Medical School in the UK found.

Their update of a 2009 review included 19 randomised trials and more than 1450 participants, and looked at dietary interventions in recurrent abdominal pain.