Asthma In Infants: Alternative Treatments That Work
Whether parent or healer, it’s a natural instinct to see an ill child and want to protect it, to take away its fear and pain. When they are in that helpless state we feel powerless; suspicious of standard medicine and yet reliant on it to cure the problem. Parents searching for natural cures often don’t know what they are looking for, or even if these non-AMA approved cures that they find might make things worse, rather than better. And one can’t blame those folks for their caution.
For the parents of children with asthma (one in ten children in the US suffer) the only solution seems to be one of ‘making do’ with steroid inhalers. Researchers are unsure as to the cause for this upsurge in young asthma sufferers. One theory speculates that widespread use of cleaning products, antibiotics, poor diet, environmental toxins and immunizations have helped spur a rise in asthma. While a moderate exposure to germs can help stimulate and infant’s immune system, pollutants, diet, heavy metals and other immune challenges simply compromise the child’s immunity.
And yet the dissatisfaction with dispensing drugs to children is growing.
ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE TO THE RESCUE–without Acupuncture
Of course, my primary task is to relieve the child’s asthma. My second one, however, is almost as important: Boosting the child’s natural immune system, thereby ensuring that the episodes diminish, and eventually disappear. The reason I rarely do acupuncture on infants is simply that’s not recommended before the age of six (and I have treated asthmatic children with acupuncture successfully).
Here are some effective, non-invasive treatment Asthma therapies: And right now I’ll focus on magnets.
1) Magnets.
According to recent studies, there is a huge drop in the use of inhalers in 75 % of children over the age of one who wear magnets for asthma. As for breathing problems related to either asthma or a bad cold, placing of a small magnet on the child’s chest at night assists breathing and stops coughing. The magnets open up the alveoli and infuse the area with up to 300 times more blood and oxygen that it might already have, pushing toxins and pollutants related to coughing out of the system.
If a child is older and has a particularly bad cough or cold a magnet both front and back may be recommended. Childhood eczema linked to asthma also responds well (although if diet-related, results are less significant). Instead of being smothered in steroid-based creams, just sleeping on a little magnetic pad increases the circulation around the body and helps bring down acidity levels. Magnets have also proved efficacious for many auto-immune disorders, such as childhood arthritis. For more information on magnet therapy, check here.
2) Pediatric massage, or Tui-Na.
This system is effective for treating infant asthma, along with many, many other infant maladies. And it’s the subject of a later blog
3) Nutrition Testing
Though considered ‘controversial’ (meaning the FDA has not yet clamped down on a method that helps), targeted supplements have been of great help with both child and adult onset asthma. Please refer to this section.
Contact me with questions: (212) 777-7191 or contact me at [email protected]
Cheers, Daniel at Blue Phoenix Wellness