Children & the Immune System
Is your child's immune system up & running to optimum?
At the Neurolink Clinic we are passionate about caring for children and giving them the best start possible in life.
During a treatment we not only check and make sure that they are processing information correctly, but we are also very committed to helping their immune system to cope with the various challenges that they are and will be facing in their developing life.
A brief look through various medical literature shows quite clearly that a large percentage of children are being immune challenged all around us. New Zealand has the second highest rate of asthma in the world, with many children suffering from multiple sensitivities - with allergies and skin conditions also being very prevalent.
In our treatments we try to look to see what the brain knows about these conditions and try to bring about a positive change. If you have recently had a treatment at the Clinic you will have heard us making reference to the enteric nervous system (the second nervous system of the body located in the gastrointestinal system) and also making reference to digestion and how important this is in the body.
“So what does my child’s runny nose or wheezing lungs have to do with their gut” you may be asking?
And more importantly “what type of things can I do to help them or what should I take into consideration concerning their health needs”?
Firstly, it is important to understand that your child is not alone in his/her journey through life and there are a lot of friends there to help him/her along the way. In the womb a child's gut is sterile. On their journey down the birth canal, when coming into contact with the mother's cervix and through the natural birth process his/her gut starts to become populated with bacteria. This will eventually become 3 to 4 pounds of bacteria - more bacteria than there are cells in the body - that will be there to help and assist with not only digestion but also the immune system. This also supplies much of the body with its nutritional needs.
More and more research is now starting to show that there is a very close link between the health of the gut and the immune condition of the body. And more and more research is starting to point to the fact that some of the current ways of dealing with "dis - ease" may be having more far reaching consequences than we have originally considered.
Antibiotics—are they the cause of asthma?
A brief overview of some of the findings can give an interesting picture….
More studies are pointing to the fact that the "over prescribing" of antibiotics is increasing the incidence of asthma in children if given in the early months and years of childhood. These antibiotics will alter the make up of the gut flora and allow for the more opportunistic bacteria and fungus to take hold and establish themselves, disturbing the peaceful and symbiotic relationship that should be developing in the gut.
While antibiotics have been shown in many cases to be invaluable for life threatening infections they can also become "too much of a good thing" if overused.
High fevers - should you let them run their course?
The last item worth mentioning has to do with how we sometimes - with the best will in the world and compassion for the suffering of our children - interrupt the inherent wisdom of the body. When the immune system senses an intruder and musters its forces to eliminate this, it does it by raising the body's temperature. When this is done and the body overcomes this challenge it becomes stronger.
Out of compassion for the suffering of our children there is a lot of use of drugs to interrupt the body's own wisdom and artificially bring down the temperature, which some research is showing can possibly be interrupting the natural development of the immune system. U.S scientists have discovered that babies who have had regular fevers in their first year have stronger immune systems and are at less risk of allergies such as eczema and asthma than those children whose fevers are suppressed.
(Important note: we are talking about slight to moderate temperatures here, not high fevers and fevers with severe spiking).
At the Neurolink Clinic, aside from the treatment itself - which is at the centre of our approach to your child’s health – we offer a range of natural products to help these issues.