Why Is My Kid Getting Sick All Of The Time?
If you’ve ever been a parent or a caregiver for a young child, you probably experienced a good amount of hand wringing and sleep deprivation when that child got sick. Thankfully, children tend to recover from acute illnesses relatively quickly; in fact, sometimes it seems that only 24 hours after they spiked a high fever, they’re running around the house causing chaos again.
Regardless of their quick recovery time, a sick child is anxiety-inducing, especially when they get sick often. During one particularly abysmal winter, when my daughter first started daycare, I began referring to her as “the cutest nidus of infection to ever exist.” She brought home EVERY NASTY BUG that was around that season, and more than once took the whole house down with her. The thing is – as the winter progressed, I continued to get sick, but she didn’t. While I sat at the kitchen table, miserable, a box of tissues nearby and a mug of warm chicken broth in my fist, she swung her feet happily and plunged pieces of baked pear into her satisfied, chubby, pink face.
This continued for much of the winter. She was mostly well, and my husband and I were…well, mostly sick. I began questioning whether my immune system was functioning at all…and concluded that it was not.
Then it dawned on me. When my daughter got sick for the first time that winter (just a common cold, but one that seemed to last too long), I ordered a book on Pediatrics and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). That week I began taking the advice I had gleaned, which was relatively simple, seeing that it pointed to one major culprit as the source of most acute childhood illness.
In the world of TCM, children are not thought of as “smaller” versions of adults. Their bodies and organ systems are still developing long after birth, which means that their major organ systems are still considered “immature.” This is why it is commonly said in TCM that “children are easily susceptible to diseases which transmit and change rapidly.”
Children are also especially sensitive to diseases associated with the Spleen (think of the Spleen as the digestive center) and the Lung. This made sense to me, seeing as the most common issues that affect children are upper respiratory complaints (coughs, colds, allergies, and asthma) and gastrointestinal complaints (colic, reflux, diarrhea, indigestion, and stomachache). But why was it that they got sick so often, yet recovered so quickly? The answer – since their bodies and organ systems aren’t as developed as an adult, their “newness” means that their bodies haven’t faced the years of “insult and injury” of an adult; therefore, they bounce back to health in no time.
Traditional Chinese Medicine and Pediatric Illness
“Chinese Medicine is the oldest, continuously practiced, literate, professional medicine in the world. It is used by one quarter of the world’s population, and it is quickly establishing itself as the world’s most respected professionally practiced alternative medicine.”
– Bob Flaws, Keeping Your Child Healthy with Chinese Medicine
In the world of TCM, a central belief is that the practitioner should treat the patterns of disharmony, not the disease itself. To put it simply; what might work for my kid might not work for your kid. For instance, a child with a dry hacking cough would not be given the same treatment as a child with a wet, phlegmy cough – they’d be treated according to the unique pattern of their signs and symptoms.
So, what is the ‘issue’ underlying most acute illnesses in children, according to the book I read? Diet.
In TCM, the Spleen represents the “digestive center.” It is the organ in charge of transforming the food we eat into vital energy (i.e. how efficiently do we absorb our food and drink?). The Spleen also has a very close relationship to the Lungs, and the Lungs have a direct relationship to ‘wei qi’ or ‘defensive qi’ (essentially, the Lung plays a crucial role in the strength of our immune system). The Spleen is also seen as the source of phlegm production. When we don’t digest efficiently, phlegm is produced and this phlegm is “stored” in the Lungs.
In sum, when the qi of the Spleen and Lung are weakened due to diet, the body is weakened in qi (including protective qi, or immunity) and is more susceptible to bacteria and viruses. Therefore, a child with weak digestion will be more susceptible to getting sick.
So What Do I Feed My Kid?
When it’s time for a child to start eating solid foods, keep in mind that everything she eats must be transformed into a 100 degree mushy soup before digestion can take place in the stomach. Because the food needs to be ‘transformed’ by the spleen yang qi (which is inherently warm), it’s a good idea to limit cold and frozen foods. Think about it. When you’ve been saddled with weakened digestion (after a flu, perhaps) – would you prefer warm chicken broth or a cold Caesar salad?
So, I began simplifying my daughter’s meals. I began steaming, baking, sautéing, or boiling (most of) her food. Instead of the frozen mango she so loved to gnaw on, I gave her a baked pear for a snack; instead of a PB&J for lunch, a bowl of quinoa pasta with steamed carrots. Boiled sweet potato and warm rice porridge became her favorite breakfast. Roasted turkey cut up into bits was also a favorite, as was a small amount of almond butter on a piece of toasted, sprouted wheat bread. And though I never thought she’d eat it – steamed broccoli with butter went down the hatch with pleasure!
I did make it a point to keep her diet varied – she still had fresh fruit (she loves cherries, figs, and apples), and she still always sampled whatever the Big People were having for dinner. But I did take the “immature digestion” seriously, and fed her the kinds of things I knew would be easy on her digestion.
And guess what? It worked like a charm! Within a month, she became the healthiest resident of the household.
Xiao Shu-qin sums up these dietary suggestions in his book Pediatric Bronchitis: Its TCM Cause, Diagnosis, Treatment & Prevention:
1. Food and drink should be clear, light, and tasty;
2. It should not be raw, cold, or greasy.
3. It should be easy to absorb and assimilate, disperse and transform.
4. Eat few tough, solid, difficult-to-digest foods.
5. Be careful of sour, astringent, fishy-smelling, and dry things.
6. Do not eat more than the proper amount, stuffing oneself too full.
Her dad and I eventually came around and realized that our diet needed to be cleaned up, too. We were still trying to figure out our lives as new parents and with the sudden decrease in free time, our diet was the first thing to suffer. In other words, our daughter was eating like a queen, but we were eating on the hurry, which often meant we were eating like crap. When we started cleaning up our diet, we finally put the tissue box away. A healthy Spleen is important for adults too! But that’s a whole other conversation…
*please note that when I refer to an organ system (Spleen, Lung), I am referring to the Traditional Chinese Medicine conceptualization of that organ, not the biomedical definition of that organ
Lauren Breau, L.Ac. is a Maine native and a Bowdoin alum. She is an acupuncturist at Wildwood Community Acupuncture, where everyone is treated, regardless of income. For details, please see: www.wildwoodmedicine.com.
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