Elisa |
||||||||
| Rossi
|
Children and Chinese Medicine
Chinese
Medicine is an approach to illness and health that has a specific
indication in children: it is highly effective in acute diseases,
it allows to reduce the taking of conventional drugs in serious chronic
pathologies, it works very well to prevent illness and to reinforce
constitution when children get easily sick.
Children correspond to spring, dawn, the rising of yang inside yin.
Therefore a characteristic of their energetic quality is the rapidity
of movement, including the movements in the state of health. They
get sick very easily, but they respond to therapeutic treatment just
as easily. When they are ill, it is often possible to modify their
energetic system which turned towards sickness, and move it towards
a better balance using only “small” actions, that do not
interfere heavily and do not invade violently.
There are many cases in which conventional medicine has little to
offer. Chinese medicine recognizes these conditions as caused by a
disharmony and addresses them with good results. For instance there
are children that during winter time must take antibiotics for tonsillitis,
otitis, bronchitis. Or children who get easily tired, look always
weary, do not enjoy food and are all the time stuck to the mother.
Or children who do not go to sleep, wake up too often, want to sleep
in the parents’ bed. Or restless children that can not maintain
any concentration, get into fits of terrible anger, seem to live in
a condition of resentment and hostility.
The
Chinese approach, without being invasive, can loosen some knots, free
accumulations, or tonify and reinforce, so that essential resources
for a richer life can be made available. This consolidation process
is important also with respect to the future: a good qi, a qi that
flows well, tends of its own accord towards a good energetic balance.
The main indications are: prevention and cure of recurrent respiratory
infections; infant acute abdominal pain, constipation, diarrhoea;
poor appetite, lassitude; common cold, cough, catarrh, asthma; poor
sleep, night crying, restlessness, agitation, hyperactivity; retarded
psycho-physical development.
Paediatric
tuina belongs to Chinese Medicine: it is based on the same physiology
and diagnosis principles, it is part of the training of traditional
doctors, it is widely used in today’s hospitals in China.
It shows some important differences from adult tuina, since the child’s
energetic system has specific characteristics, which involves differences
in physiology and pathology, as well as in semeiotics, diagnosis and
treatment.
The tuina treatment for children is generally a sequence of 8-12 stimulations/methods-fa,
mainly pushing-tui and kneading-rou, on lines or points. Each fa is
done for 1-2 minutes, and the child can lay down or sit or stay in
the lap of the parent. At home the sequence is done once a day, more
often in case of an acute condition (e.g.fever).
As
for acupuncture, there is no contraindication about its use, and it
is simpler then in adults: clinical patterns are clearer since life
had less time to create confusion in the qi, and the response is faster
since children qi is more dynamic.
The needles are much thinner, the number of points is small, the stimulation
time is short. To use needles with children is easy. We can remember
that the needle goes through a passage: in Chinese the acupuncture
point is called xue, meaning “hole, lair”, that is a sort
of a gallery through which we reach the qi. If our technique is good
enough, the insertion is painless and it is not necessary to distract
the child, but they get actually involved by saying something like
“now let’s see if you feel a “zzz” inside,
you tell me when it happens” or “now we touch two points
and we see if they talk to each-other”, or “here there
is a nice path, let’s go into the little house and we clean
it well”.
Children Tuina - Traditional Chinese Massage
Xiaoxiao, a free children clinic: a two years experience with paediatric tuina and acupuncture
Paediatric Tuina and Acupuncture the Xiaoxiao Clinic in Milan
Xiaoxiao, a Free Children Clinic, Milan
The Xiaoxiao FISTQ Children Centre of Chinese Medicine and its Pilot-studies
