Y
our little one has just
finished a course of
antibiotics, yet her nose
is still running and her
cough is not going away. With recent
reports about the rise of drug-resistant
superbugs, you wonder if there are
other ways to rescue your toddler from
her misery. Might traditional Chinese
medicine (TCM) be the answer?
Olivia Jia is a firm believer in
natural remedies, so TCM is always
one of her preferred options for
treatment when her little ones fall sick.
She says she has never given her eight-
month-old Damon any antibiotics. “As
most doctors would tell you, fever is
the way our bodies fight an infection.
I would just give them lots of fluids
when they have a low-grade fever,”
says the mother of two.
Leung Ho Wing, a Chinese
medicine lecturer at Hong Kong
Baptist University, agrees and adds,
“
Some children tend to fall sick more
often. If they keep taking antibiotics,
the antibiotics will get less effective.”
When it comes to general ailments
among children, he believes TCM
is a better alternative because it
strengthens the child’s overall
immune system while getting rid of
phlegm and mucus.
Olivia’s other son Darrell is now
four, and he has always had a sensitive
stomach and suffered from diarrhoea
frequently. “I used to give him the
medicine the paediatrician prescribed,
and it did help. But a week or so
later, he got diarrhoea again.” When
she heard from a friend of a friend
that TCM could fix this problem,
she decided to give it a go and took
Darrell to a TCM practitioner.
“
He was about two years old at
the time. The Chinese doctor just took
a look at his tongue, his palms, and
checked his pulse,” – a “simple and
painless” encounter, she recalls. The
practitioner gave Darrell some ground
herbs to take. “When I added water to
the powder, it didn’t smell as awful as I
thought [it would].”
Although it took some convincing
and bribing to get the toddler to drink it,
Olivia said she was quite happy with the
results, and “was particularly glad that I
didn’t have to feed him more medicine.
At least the herbs are natural.”
Nature’s cure?
Besides drawing on natural resources to
cure ailments, managing overall, holistic
health conditions is key to TCM.
Gianna Buonocore, a registered
Chinese medicine practitioner at
Integrated Medicine Institute (IMI),
says TCM is about adjusting our body
to the environment, and establishing
a balance between the “qi” and the
blood. “While Western medicine looks
at different parts of the body that need
traditional
Is traditional Chinese medicine the right approach
for treating your sniffling toddler?
Angel Chan
investigates.
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