Natural Practitioner June 2012 : Page 18providers. “Even at the time there was evidence to support that these OTC chemical based pain killers caused seri-ous and fatal side effects for all age groups, especially for children. Our edu-cational forums have provided a neces-sary and effective platform to discuss children’s issues among parents, educa-tors and doctors,” said Paradise. Keri Marshall, MD, ND, chief medical officer with Nordic Naturals, a California-based fish oil supplement manufacturer, noted that anxiety, depression and attention disorders are three conditions that are impacting mil-lions of children today. “There are so many pressures on children these days—keeping up with a level of acade-mia that is significantly more than we faced as children, as well as after-school activities that keep kids going 24 hours a day,” she said. “And you can’t underesti-mate the anxiety kids are picking up from their parents’ economic distress— that anxiety will be projected onto the child depending on how it’s dealt with.” In response, Dr. Marshall said she has seen a staggering number of kids on daily medications, the side effects of which can be worse than what they’re intended to treat. “Often parents will turn to natural practitioners after their child has had a bad experience with these medications,” she added, noting the side effects can cause more depres-sion, fits of rage, anger and even suici-dal thoughts. “These children were suf-fering to begin with, and the drugs are only increasing that suffering.” Mary Bove, ND, author of the Encyclopedia of Natural Healing for Children and Infants who practices at Brattleboro Naturopathic Clinic in Vermont, agreed that children are wrestling with considerably more com-plex conditions today, and that parents are rightfully worried about medica-tion as a solution. “Parents have con-cerns about their child’s use of phar-maceutical drugs; particularly long-term use of drugs for mood and focus issues, long-term poor outcomes, over medication and antibiotic resistance,” said Dr. Bove, who is a member of North Carolina-based Gaia Herbs’ advisory board and formulator of the company’s children’s line of products. “In addition, parents are not feeling that traditional treatments are effective nor offering solutions for their child. Natural therapies offer multiple options for the parent including nutri-tional and dietary programs, lifestyle coaching, family participation, allergy, detoxification, functional testing that can evaluate physiological strengths and a multiple of other types of well-ness tools.” of their children’s diet (preservatives, artificial color and flavor, foods high in salicylates) and replacing them with a healthy balanced diet that the parents can benefit from also,” said Dr. London, noting that dietary changes can take up to one month to have a positive effect on behavior. Her other note is to get their chil-dren moving. “Daily exercise is also very beneficial for the child who suffers from ADD or ADHD—parents should join their child as exercise helps the whole family and can help sleep pat-terns,” she said. Botanicals & Homeopathy According to Dr. Psota, children really respond to botanical and homeopathic medicines, which are effective treat-ments for common ailments like ear and upper respiratory infections, con-junctivitis, allergies and asthma. “These therapies can be used alone, depending on both practitioner and parent comfort levels, or they can be combined with traditional treatments,” she said. Diet & Exercise Dr. Marshall expressed that nutrition is a key part of her consultation with parents and children, and it all starts with breakfast. “A lot of kids skip breakfast, meaning the brain doesn’t have the nutrients it needs for the day. They get to school and are challenged by everything around them because they don’t have fuel to function at peak level,” she said. Cathleen London, MD, an assistant professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and an assistant attend-ing physician at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, is a diplomat of the American Board of Family Medicine and a mem-ber of the American Academy of Family Physicians that has been counseling children or adolescents for 21 years. She offered that while there isn’t any empiri-cal data that has determined the cause of the rise in ADHD and ADD (atten-tion deficit disorder) in children, she has seen benefits of nutritional modifi-cation, exercise, increased quality of sleep and talk therapy. “As a doctor and parent, I feel there is a time and place for drug intervention, but with ADD and ADHD, the side effects of the drug options have some parents feeling like ‘they just changed seats on the Titanic,’” she said. “The starting point should always be diet modification, meaning getting the food with associations to behavior issues out Hyland’s in California offers a full line of OTC homeopathic medicines for babies 6 months and over as well as a 4 Kids line for children between 2 and 12 years of age that provide symptomatic relief for colds, coughs, allergies, teething, colic, as well as other common childhood complaints. Most recently, it launched Hyland’s Baby Cough Syrup, a 100 percent natural, homeopathic for-mula that relieves symptoms for a vari-ety of coughs without drowsy or stimu-lant side effects, in kids as young as 6 months old. “Homeopathic medicines have no contraindications and do not interact with other medicines; they can be used complementary to more traditional OTC medicines when appropriate,” said Steve Snyder, national sales manager for Hyland’s professional division. “For instance, children that are on a prescrip-tion medicine that may result in unpleasant side effects such as wakeful-ness can take a homeopathic medicine to help with the wakefulness.” Sara Chana, IBCLC, RH (AHG), a member of the American Herbalist WWW.NATURALPRACTITIONERMAG.COM JUNE 2012 18 NATURAL PRACTITIONER Publication List Using a screen reader? Click Here |
