Health Matters - Using Homeopathy for Children

Homeopathy is suitable for everyone - but children, with their strong vitality, tend to respond quickly  to its medicines, and parents who bring children for homeopathy know that it is a natural system of medicine that works with the body and is completely non-toxic.

Here are some headlines to help you understand how homeopathy works:

• It treats the whole person dynamically – the entire pattern of physical, emotional and mental symptoms and characteristics of the person who is ill. 
• Each person experiences their symptoms uniquely and is given a prescription that is individual to them.
• Homeopathy understands symptoms as signs of how the whole organism is out of balance. 
• The “Law of Similars” is used, meaning that a substance that can cause similar symptoms to those of the ill person is given.  Symptoms of illness and remedy are matched.
• Medicines (remedies) are derived from natural substances and are highly dilute and potentised, given as sugar pills or liquid.  They stimulate the body’s own healing system enabling it to move towards balance, away from symptoms of illness, improving overall health.

Anyone who has spent a day with a lively 3 year-old will know who is more tired at bedtime.  Children are good at recovering: just a short nap and their energy is restored.  Similarly, when children are ill, they are able to produce strong, effective symptoms that help them throw off their illness quickly and return to balanced good health.  

Think of the child that goes to bed as usual then wakes after midnight with a nightmare.  When you go to him he looks scared, his pupils are dilated and he obviously has a high temperature: his face is burning hot and red although his hands and lower body is cold.  He seems a little delirious and you are worried.  However, you sit with him, give him drinks, sponge him with tepid water and he goes into a deep sleep, waking in the morning as if nothing had happened! 

More often than not children can recover quickly on their own (with a parent’s loving care).  However, we all know that the symptoms themselves can be a cause for concern – a fever can be so strong it gets too high causing febrile convulsions, or prolonged diarrhoea can cause dehydration and prostration.  If in my example, the temperature reached towards 105°F (40°C), you could have given “Calpol”, called NHS direct or you could have given the homeopathic remedy Belladonna because the symptoms that the child had matched the symptoms of that remedy.  Homeopathy is very helpful in an acute situation like this because it helps the body do its work of restoring balance. Think of homeopathy for straightforward coughs, colds, sore throats, sickness… where the symptoms are causing suffering.  Ring your homeopath for help.

There are times though when children can not return to the level of health they had, or perhaps have  never enjoyed good health. This is chronic illness and a time when he should see a homeopath. He may have inherited illness such as eczema, allergies, a tendency for ear infections, headaches, chesty coughs… We can easily think of physical symptoms that our children need to be helped with but remember that homeopathy helps the whole person and emotional and mental imbalances can be treated too. 

Everybody – not just children is affected by day-to-day stresses that arise from family and friendships, school/work, new situations, developmental stages, bad news… if you/ your child copes that is fine; it is when you/he feels permanently overwhelmed that help is needed.  A child who has started a new class at school and becomes unhappy, clingy and tearful is someone who has been affected on the emotional level.  If you think that your child is “out of balance” or is “not himself” in any way, then he may benefit from homeopathy.  Perhaps he is over-anxious, not sleeping well, is excessively angry, has low confidence, is being bullied, has poor concentration… homeopathy can help the child return to physical, emotional and mental balance, helping achieve his health potential.

I am always happy to speak to you on the phone if you would like to discuss how homeopathy could help you or your child.