Protect your littles. The pediatric beds in hospitals are full. If you’ve got little ones, it's not random which kids get sick. That's a terrible thought. I would be terrified if I believed that illness and hospitalization just randomly affected my child. No, that's not at all how it works. Much depends on what's happening in the home. The food they eat, more importantly, the foods they do NOT eat, play a large role in their immune function. Most importantly, the organ that communicates an invading bacteria or virus to the immune system and creates the matching antibody response, needs to be at its best.
I read on social media, posts in mom’s groups or even new parents who I took care of as a child, that now their child is sick in in the hospital. Their posts commonly include “Pray for my child”. “He is on antibiotics again”. “It’s another ear infection”. “She came down with RSV and is in the hospital.” “Thank God for the caring people at the hospital.” This didn't happen to them when they were children, but they didn’t learn why their parents took care of them here. Indeed, thank you to the special doctors and nurses that help these little ones in crisis. It would be horrible without that intervention. It is fabulous there is that safety net.
Safety net is not health care. It is disease based crisis care. It is stressful, dangerous and expensive. It is wonderful that it exists, but most would prefer not to need that care.
We know how to do that. First, to keep your child out of the medical clinic or hospital, her nervous system needs to be kept free of interference. Interference happens in babies in toddlers from sleeping position, caregiver handling, falls and the birth process itself. If you haven’t seen it done, adjusting a baby spine doesn’t look anything like adjusting an adult. It is very light contact and very little force involved. The difference in babies and toddlers is night and day.
Babies who get adjusted fare so much better as they encounter viruses and bacteria than kids who don’t. Their stomach and digestion work better. They sleep better. So, much of their lives is better. You almost don’t need to do anything else. Almost.
Because our food supply is out of whack due to governmental subsidies on sugar content foods and extra regulations for producers of organic foods, as a society we tend to consume too much junk food. I know, nobody thinks they do. Ask anyone how well they eat. The answer will be "I eat pretty good". So, it's not you or anybody you or I know that's eating poorly. But somebody is. The proof is in the supermarket. They wouldn’t stock shelves with things that don’t sell. And way too many shelves are full of processed, high sugar, trans fat, preserved, colored, junk food. It is making it into somebody's kitchen and the grocery store restocks more because they will sell it too…. After whoever that is that eat it, eats the stuff they just bought.
That type of food is driving immune systems to be hypersensitive and ultimately unavailable to response when necessary. Allergies, eczema and asthma are aggravated by those foods. Stomach problems are even created by those foods.
Sleep is critical as well. Babies and toddlers need more sleep than we think. Growing is exhausting.
Then there's the very long topic of probiotics. Let's just say they are needed. Source from yogurt, kombucha, sauerkraut and other fermented food. But, really, kids aren't going to eat terribly much sauerkraut and yogurt's not enough (plus all the sugar). It requires supplementation. These are now available in every grocery store. Stay tuned, I'll do another blog on probios soon.
It's not a lottery. The steps to keep your child healthy are established. We have been showing families how to get and stay healthy without medical intervention for disease for 30 years. The process is simple. It does require stepping out of our cultural bias to wait until our kids are sick and then treating that disease though. Treating the disease medically frequently creates even more disease. We are all familiar with antibiotic resistant infections due to previous antibiotic use. But, it starts earlier than that. Here's a very common example. Fever for instance, is the body fighting the infection. Administering Tylenol or Ibuprofen hinders their immune system allowing the virus or bacteria to potentially run amuck. Then necessitating a visit to the pediatrician because the child just doesn't get better. Frequently, by then a full blow ear infection has set in. The pediatrician would be remiss if he or she didn't write a prescription for antibiotics. That child who gets an antibiotic is 4 times more likely to have another ear infection than if he did not. There is research now that even that one antibiotic may predispose the child to diabetes, obesity and affect disorders many years later. The system we are using for healthcare is actually crisis care.
Don't get me wrong. We need crisis care for when crisis arises. Crisis care can create more problems in the future. We need healthcare to avoid the crisis care. We do healthcare here.
Let’s just get the kids healthy, keep them healthy and happy. It is so much better for everyone. If your kids have not been checked out to make sure their nervous system is doing well, schedule that over the upcoming holidays when they are out of school or you are off work to do so. Join us at a workshop to learn more about eating healthy.
Blessings,
Dr. B.
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