The Windi is a small, hollow catheter that you insert into your baby’s rectum to release trapped gas. It works by physically bypassing the tight ring of muscle at the opening of the anus, giving gas (and sometimes stool) a direct path out. Many parents turn to it when their baby is visibly straining, pulling up their legs, or crying from what appears to be gas pain.
How the Device Releases Gas
Babies often struggle to pass gas on their own because the muscles around the anus are still developing coordination. Your baby may be able to push gas through the intestines but lack the ability to relax the final sphincter muscle at just the right moment. The Windi is essentially a tiny tube with a rounded tip that reaches just past that sphincter. Once the tip is in place, the hollow center of the tube creates an open channel, and gas escapes on its own without your baby needing to coordinate any muscles at all. You’ll typically hear a small whistle or hissing sound when it’s working.
Design and Materials
The Windi is made from medical-grade, BPA-free, latex-free thermoplastic elastomer, so it’s soft and flexible. Two features matter most: the rounded tip, which is smooth enough to avoid irritating delicate tissue, and a built-in stopper that prevents you from inserting it too far. The stopper is a flange or ridge partway along the tube that physically stops against the outside of the baby’s body, so only the intended length enters the rectum.
How to Use It
Before inserting the Windi, most parents apply a small amount of coconut oil, petroleum jelly, or another baby-safe lubricant to the tip. Lay your baby on their back and gently bicycle their legs or massage their belly in a clockwise circular motion to help move gas downward through the intestines. Then insert the lubricated tip until the stopper rests against the skin. You may hear gas release almost immediately, or it may take a few seconds. Sometimes stool comes out too, which is normal.
Each Windi is designed for single use. The manufacturer is clear that reusing the same catheter poses an infection risk, so you should discard it after the session. The one exception: if you need to reinsert during the same treatment session (for example, if your baby still seems uncomfortable a few minutes later), you can use the same catheter before throwing it away.
How Often Parents Typically Use It
There’s no official maximum frequency from the manufacturer, but most parents who’ve used the Windi consistently describe limiting it to once or twice a week. Some have used it up to two or three times in a single particularly rough day, but they treat that as an upper limit rather than a routine. The general instinct among experienced parents is to reserve it for moments when the baby is clearly struggling, not to use it preemptively or on a daily schedule. Most families find they only need it for a stretch of a few weeks to a couple of months before their baby’s digestive system matures enough to handle gas independently.
What the Evidence Says About Effectiveness
No published clinical trials have tested the Windi specifically. The principle behind it, rectal stimulation to help release gas and stool, is well established in neonatal care. Some clinical evidence suggests that rectal stimulation in newborns can reduce pain symptoms and improve sleep patterns. But there’s an important distinction between a technique used occasionally by a parent and one performed routinely: a 2025 narrative review in the National Institutes of Health archive found no strong evidence supporting rectal stimulation as a routine practice and recommended that healthcare professionals avoid promoting it without clear clinical need.
That said, many parents report immediate, visible relief when using the Windi on a gassy baby. The lack of formal studies doesn’t mean it doesn’t work in the moment. It means no one has rigorously measured how well it works compared to doing nothing, doing tummy massage alone, or using simethicone drops.
Risks Worth Knowing About
The Windi’s safety stopper reduces the most obvious risk of inserting anything into a baby’s rectum: going too deep. But rectal stimulation in general carries potential risks that the same NIH review identified, including minor mucosal injury, rectal bleeding, infection, and discomfort or stress for the baby. These risks are more relevant to frequent or aggressive use than to occasional, gentle insertion, but they’re real.
The concern parents raise most often isn’t physical injury. It’s whether their baby could become dependent on rectal stimulation to pass gas or stool. This worry makes intuitive sense: if you always provide an external shortcut, the baby might not learn the internal coordination on their own. No published research has confirmed or ruled out this possibility with the Windi specifically. The practical advice from parents and pediatricians tends to be the same: use it sparingly, treat it as a last resort rather than a first-line tool, and pair it with other approaches like belly massage, bicycle legs, and proper burping technique.
Alternatives That Work Alongside It
Most parents who use the Windi also use other strategies throughout the day. Bicycle legs (gently pushing the baby’s knees toward their chest in an alternating pedaling motion) can help move gas through the intestines without any insertion. Clockwise abdominal massage applies gentle pressure that follows the natural path of the colon. Holding your baby in a face-down position across your forearm (the “colic hold”) puts light pressure on the belly. Simethicone drops break up larger gas bubbles into smaller ones that may pass more easily, though their clinical evidence is also limited.
For breastfed babies, gas problems sometimes improve when the nursing parent adjusts their diet to reduce common triggers like dairy or cruciferous vegetables. For formula-fed babies, switching to a formula designed for sensitive stomachs or adjusting the bottle’s flow rate to reduce air swallowing can help. The Windi works best as one tool among several rather than the only approach you rely on.