FOR CHILDREN & TEENS
The Bodies of Children and Teens
When a child is frequently unwell, or sleep, appetite, or mood aren't what they used to be, parents wonder whether it's simply part of growing up or something to look into. Here we've gathered articles the director wrote herself, addressing the questions she's often asked in the clinic.
Good to read first
A child's body is not simply a smaller version of an adult's. That's also why the standards for using medicine are different.
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A Child's Body Is Not a Scaled-Down Adult's
How many times a child's heart should beat to count as normal — even that reference table was for a long time something adults had guessed at. When it was actually measured, it differed. When I see a child, I see not a smaller adult but a body under different conditions.
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May I Give My Child Herbal Medicine?
A child is not a miniature adult. The very machinery that processes medicine is different. With a child I set the goal narrow, the duration short, state the cautions first, and use it. And the children who must be sent on, I send on.
Sleep and the Night
A baby who wakes the moment you lay them down, a child whose legs ache at night, wet sheets at night, a teenager who can't get up in the morning — each has its own bodily reason.
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Asleep in Your Arms, Awake the Moment You Put Them Down
Parents joke that their baby has a sensor on its back. But an infant's chest is not a small version of an adult's, and lying on the back genuinely makes the work of breathing harder. Waking up and not settling again appear to have different causes.
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The Child Who Says Their Legs Hurt at Night
In the evening they say their legs hurt, and by morning they are running about. We commonly call it growing pains, but the evidence that growing taller is itself what hurts is weaker than you might think. Some children feel more pain from the same stimulus, and how much they feel shifts with how the day has gone.
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The Child Who Wets the Bed in Their Sleep
Bedwetting is not a habit. The hormone that reduces urine at night, the amount the bladder holds at night, and the power to wake from sleep at the signal that the bladder is full — which of these three is not yet grown in is what makes it look different from child to child.
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No Matter How I Wake Him, He Cannot Get Up in the Morning
Past the upper elementary years, a child cannot get up in the morning. It is easy to see this as having become lazy, but at this age the body's clock really does shift later. That it stays that way even when they are given plenty of sleep has been confirmed in the laboratory.
Common Bodily Signs
Nosebleeds, frequent colds and appetite changes, sweets and headaches — common signs, but ones worth not simply passing over.
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My Child Gets Nosebleeds Often
A child's nosebleeds usually come from the same spot. It is a place at the front of the nasal septum where blood vessels gather close to the surface. If they come often, you have to look at what state the lining of that spot is in, and the knack for stopping them depends on the spot as well.
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Since Starting Daycare, She Has Had One Cold After Another
A child who has started daycare catches colds often and does not eat well. These two are not separate matters. Losing one's appetite while ill is something the body does, and so the order of recovery is set as well.
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When Spring Brings Frequent Colds and Shallow Sleep
The daily clock the body set for winter has to be moved in spring. The suprachiasmatic nucleus, which does that work, shifts only a little each day. Meanwhile pollen thins the defence of the nasal lining, and a wide day-to-night temperature swing keeps the sympathetic nervous system switched on. Three things overlap, each in a different place.
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A Child Who Eats Sweet Things Often Says Their Head Hurts
A child fond of sweet things saying their head hurts is not rare in the consulting room. I read it less as a matter of how high the blood sugar is than of how steeply it rises and falls.
School-Age Children
A stomachache that only happens at school, a mind that grows more sensitive the more tired it gets, period pain severe enough to miss school.
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He Says His Stomach Hurts Only at School
There are children who are fine at home but say their stomach hurts and their breathing feels tight the moment they get to school. The body has read the situation in advance and gone into a state of readiness, and that state does not touch only one place. This is why the stomach and the breath come together.
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They Say They Have No Energy — So Why Are They So Oversensitive?
A child is worn out, yet reacts strongly to small things. You would think that when strength drains away they would go quiet, but instead they get louder. This place, where reactions grow larger as reserves shrink, is something Korean medicine has long had a name for, and modern pharmacology has a name for it too.
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When Period Pain Is Bad Enough to Keep Her Out of School
Period pain comes from a substance made inside the uterus squeezing the uterus hard. The squeezing reduces blood flow, and the place where it is reduced becomes painful. This is also why painkillers work well, and it is the same point that I work on.