The creation of a new life, the development of the fetus during pregnancy and the overall growth and development of a human being is a great alchemy, an extremely perfect and elaborate process. How does Traditional Chinese Medicine view everything? What is the main influence? In today's article we will focus most of our attention on children, their harmonious development and also on specific health problems associated with childhood.
There is no other way to start than at the very beginning. Chinese medicine sees the functioning of the body and mind as the result of the cooperation of certain life substances. These are qi energy, shen mind and yin essence. So, as we might expect, the kidneys are considered by traditional Chinese medicine to be one of the most important organs of the body and will be discussed in relation to children. They are said to be the yin-yang root of all internal organs and source of life. Their importance stems from the fact that the kidneys store innate life force and matterfrom which man is born and lives, and through which he himself can produce more offspring. That's why the kidneys were given the name prenatal basis Makeover. So it is obvious to us that without the right essence of the kidneys it would not be possible. New life would not be created, the fetus would not be nourished, and the child would not grow into an adult.
But let's take it one step at a time. The kidneys store essence of jing. It is considered the "root of the body", i.e. the basic substance from which the future embryo, the future body, is formed after the union of the essences of man and woman (from the reproductive essence). We call this germinal substance prenatal essence of jing or also the kidney's own essence. It is innate and nourishes the fetus in pregnancy. It determines each person's personality, strength, appearance, vitality and constitution. After birth it is stored in the kidneys, where it becomes the basis for the aforementioned reproductive essence and enables a person to beget children. The prenatal essence determines the length of life, is fixed before birth, cannot be increased in any way, and only diminishes throughout life. To slow its decline, it is advisable to strive for harmony in life activities, which means working, resting, eating and exercising evenly. The prenatal essence is partially replaced by the postnatal essence during life, as the prenatal would be depleted very quickly. The two are inseparable, one could not exist without the other, they are dependent on each other. In order for postnatal energy (the source of nourishment of the body) to arise, prenatal energy must exist.
Prenatal essence determines life expectancy and is fixed before birth.
It is therefore useful to summarize why kidney essence (prenatal and postnatal) is beneficial. It plays a very important role in human physiology - it determines growth, reproduction, development, sexual maturity, fertility and pregnancy. It controls the growth of bones, teeth, hair and the development of brain functions. Its weakening results in delayed growth in children, poor bone development, mental retardation in children, and bone problems (growths) in adults, infertility, repeated miscarriages, loss of teeth and hair, or premature graying.
It is also interesting to note that Chinese medicine has traced an eight-year cycle of kidney essence flow in men, and a seven-year cycle in women. At 7 years, the kidney essence in girls increases, the milk teeth are replaced by permanent ones and the hair thickens. At the age of 14, the fertile substance awakens, the functional duct becomes patent, the lavage duct thickens, and regular menstruation comes. At the age of 8, the boy's kidney qi increases, permanent dentition is restored and hair grows, and at the age of 16, sperm is produced and a child can already be conceived. The development in the cycles described is influenced by the functioning of other organs of the body and the triple radiator.
How is it possible to influence the correct development of an unborn child? The answer can be found by studying the triple radiator, especially the lower one. The triple radiator is a specific organ that is typically involved in fluid, heat and energy management. At birth, a certain amount of energy is stored in the child's kidneys, which it received from the father before birth and from the mother at conception, and it receives energy from the mother throughout pregnancy. The baby's own triple radiator begins to work with its first breath. The upper radiator exerts its activity in breathing, the middle radiator in obtaining energy from food, and in consuming it, and the lower radiator serves to secrete and to store the life force which we can draw from here. Just after birth until the seventh year, the triple radiator is most sensitive. It doesn't become stable until after puberty.
Traditional Chinese medicine believes that children are not just adults in a smaller version. According to the principles of Chinese medicine, children are immature and most health problems originate from this immaturity. Children under the age of five often do not have a sufficiently developed digestive system. The spleen and stomach are considered the foundation of the digestive system. Chinese doctors claim that it is the spleen and stomach of children that are weak and underdeveloped. Children's digestive system can only with great difficulty effectively separate the clean from the sludge. Therefore, children do not use as much qi and blood from food as adults do. Children's bodies also cannot completely eliminate waste qi. It can then accumulate inside the body and cause damage.
These are the causes of most of the childhood illnesses that we may commonly encounter. These include colic, earaches and ear infections, coughs, recurrent respiratory illnesses, allergies, bedwetting, childhood asthma and eczema.
Young children up to about 10 years of age are mostly yang (hot, fiery), so they tend to overheat.
One of the most common problems nowadays in children is the fact that more and more children have, from the point of view of Chinese medicine, a kind of "persistent hot toxin in the blood"which is a common cause of various recurrent and chronic diseases. The hot toxin can be brought into life from intrauterine development, by transfer from the body of the mother, who during pregnancy had various infections, inappropriate diet, experienced strong emotions and emotional shocks, smoked, used alcohol, drugs, medicines. All this she gave to her child. Even vaccination contributes to bringing a hot toxin into the child's body. If this residual toxin is not eliminated from the body in time, it settles in the body, vegetates and waits for the right opportunity to manifest itself again. Young children up to about 10 years of age are usually so-called yang (hot, fire) because they have an excess of yang, their yin is still deficient (cold, water) and is only gradually building up. Therefore they tend to overheat easily. Excessive use of antibiotics is another cause of the vicious cycle of morbidity in children. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, all antibiotics bring about the so-called cold to the spleen and stomach pathway...and, in the vernacular, cool the stomach. The cold freezes the flow of energy in the pathways and is later converted into heat, which enters the blood layer and creates there again a favourable environment for a large number of infections. Antibiotics also "extinguish" physiological fire in the kidneyswhich also serves to maintain healthy and defensive energy of the organism.
However, we must not forget that diet is a very important topic. We do not need to go into too much detail about how we all eat 'well and healthy' today. This is doubly true for children, because, as we have already said, children, with their immature digestive tract, are very sensitive to the quality of their food. The most important and suitable diet for children is a natural diet. They are most bothered by foods that are chemically and industrially processed, because they cannot yet process them well. These are mainly milk, dairy products and sugar. Milk and dairy products bring into the body the so-called "sugar". cold and damp, which will later transform into mucus. This mucus is converted into hot mucusin which any infection easily multiplies and causes chronically enlarged lymph nodes, enlarged tonsils, enlarged nasal tonsils, sinusitis, middle ear discharge, chronic wet cough, etc. Another harmful food is sugar (glucose) in any form. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, sugar brings into the body the so-called "glucose". humid and hotwhich is a breeding ground for various bacteria and viruses. Among the recommended foods that, according to Chinese medicine dissolve the hot mucus in the upper hearth, are Mainly tofu (soy cheese), kohlrabi, radishes, radishes, asparagus, shiitake mushrooms, seaweed, pears, grapefruit, tangerines, lemons, limes, pomelo, rabbit, rooster, chicken, trout, pikeperch, celery seed, spring onions, chives, parsley, coriander seed, coriander, chamomile, thyme, oregano, horseradish, mustard seed, wasabi mustard, lemon and tangerine peel, green tea.
Improper diet and unhealthy lifestyle leads to eczema even in very young children - internal overheating, it "boils" in them and with the help of a skin valve it is discharged out. It usually appears on the wrists, below the elbow, below the knees and on the thighs. In ancient Greek eczema is expressed by the word "boil" and in Chinese medicine by the term "moist discharge". Traditional Chinese medicine diagnoses eczema as 'dry heat', which produces dry, itchy and peeling eczema, and 'moist heat', which produces wet eczema with frequent blistering. An imaginary valve opens on the skin in the form of inflammation, pimples and eczema deposits to expel toxins from the body. The solution inherently includes dietary modification, the use of herbs that balance internal imbalances. These are herbs that detoxify the liver (licorice, spearmint, horsetail, bearberry, calendula, rosemary, earthwort) and herbs that "draw" the heat out of the blood and add nourishing and cooling components (violet, honeysuckle, burdock, honeysuckle).
This article was published with the kind permission of of the magazine Sphere
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