Natural Healing For Babies and Children

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Since 1983 arter leaving a pre-medical program at an early college for gifted teenagers, I have been a student and practitioner of family-centered natural health care. This path has led me to study independently through books, to study with many herbalists, to gain hands-on clinical experience, and to receive the necessary training to practice as a midwife In addition, I have completed the requirements for Master Herbalist certification and have studied both western and eastern philosophies of health. I have found that natural remedies are not only generally safe, accessible, and affordable, but that they have brought my entire family closer to the natural world While over ten years of midwifery and herbal practice has taught me a great deal about natural family health, my most profound teachers have been my husband and our four children, and the experi ences we've had through times of both health and illness

Natural Healing for Babies and Children drives home one of the most natural principles of health care: the more informed are the parents, the healthier are their children. With this book, Aviva Romm encourages parents to be active participants, rather than passive recipients, in the health care of their children and gives parents the tools to take responsibility for health care decisions. Traditional medicine, while necessary and lifesaving in many circumstances, often ignores the mind-body connection and the miraculous ability of the body to heal itself-given the right boost from nature's natural medicines. The information in this text is meant to be in addition to, not a substitute for, your child's doctor. It makes parents partners in the health care of their family, helping them use common sense remedies and good nutrition to improve the health and well-being of their children.

This is a timely book. The inevitable health care "reform" will be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, parents will have less access to doc- tors to heal their children. On the other hand, the beneficial effect of this change is that people will have to take more self-responsibility for their health care. They will have to rely more on nonprescription health care products, and one of these will be herbs.

Parents must become experts on their children. No one else will. Throughout this book the author recommends a high-touch style of child care, which I call "attachment parenting." This way of caring for babies and children helps parents get to know their child, to be more sensitive to the well child, and therefore to know more intuitively how to treat the sick child. I applaud the author for presenting the health benefits of massage, good nutrition, and breast-feeding.

The body has a tremendous capacity for healing itself, yet sometimes we have to help it along a bit-naturally.

This book was created for parents who want to care for their children in ways that are natural, safe, affordable, and environmentally conscious. It offers herbal and other natural remedies that speak to our desire to improve and maintain the health of our families, prevent illness, and feel capable of caring for ourselves.

Conventional medicine is a mixed blessing. It best serves our needs in crises that require heroic intervention. Blood tests, antibiotics, and any number of medical procedures allow us to gain sometimes-essential information and even save lives. But modern medicine also gives us the feeling that health care is something "done to us"-that we are passive, not active, participants in our own health. This can be very disempowering.

People who feel disempowered generally fall into one of two categories. One type seeks professional care for every complaint, ending up with overtreatment, overmedication, and to top it off, an overpriced doctor's bill. The other type avoids medical care by ignoring a problem and hoping the symptoms will go away. As a result, these people may wind up with a more serious complaint that might have been resolved readily at the onset, or they may live with chronic discomfort affecting the quality of their lives. The first type believes that illness is insidious and that our health is fragile and dependent on the medical profession. The second type avoids doctors for financial reasons or out of a real fear of being subjected to unnecessary procedures and treatments that physicians often employ in order to cover themselves in the event of litigation.

This book represents a balance between the extremes. By using it to explore the nature of the illnesses and discomforts that commonly affect your children, you can learn when home care is reasonable and how to do it, and when to seek help without giving up your sense of involvement and empowerment. You will learn practical, traditional methods of improving, maintaining, and restoring your children's well-being. By becoming more of a participant in your own wellness and that of your children, your confidence will grow and so will your relationship with those you care for.