Joyce (Joelton, Tn) on 08/15/2008:

08/13/2008: AKR from Jersey City, New Jersey writes: "I am an avid fan of EarthClinic! I have a suggestion for a new Infant/kids health page.

Here's my motivation. I recenlty became a dad. Son is almost six months now. I have made a pledge to myself to keep myself as healthy as possible using all the knowledge from EarthClinic (and other sources). So, hopefully, I will never have to fall prey to a doctor and the traditional medical system again. I would like to do the same for my son. But I don't have much idea as to what you can do, or what you can feed an infant/child (aside from the obvious of course)to keep them super healthy, and build inpenetrable immunity.

For eg, is it a good idea to give them a few drops of black strap molasses or bee pollen starting at a certain age? Omega 3 oils? My son has some allergies, which I suspect is due to HiB vaccination he got right at birth. I was not knowledgeable enough at that time to refuse that vaccine, but have postponed his schedule for the rest after much research. So, again, I am wondering, if I can give my son a few drops of ACV starting at say nine months of age to help clear his allergies?

Many thx!
AKR"

Welcome to the world of being on call for that fine son 24/7/52 from his birth onward. Aren't babies wonderful. Such perfect little ones, although you can get awful tired of not getting enough sleep.

My name is Joyce & I'll try to answer some of your questions. First off, if he is having allergy problems, the most likely offender is milk. If he is still on milk, do an on-line search for "excitotoxins" and print out that long list of names they hide monosodium glutamate (MSG) under and when you go looking for a good substitute formula make sure it doesn't contain any MSG or aspartame, especially any hydrolyzed plant (corn, soy or other)protein as Blaylock says this is the most deadly form of MSG because it also contains aspartame (Nutri-sweet). These are two excitotoxins found in most every processed foods and are ones you want to protect your son from. If you can't find baby foods without them, table foods will probably be better (just throw some of what gets cooked in a blender & puree it for him.

You are going to find it isn't easy to avoid these two excitotoxins unless you cook from scratch, and even then you have to read labels carefully. For instance, Tyson chicken (raw) that you have to take home and cook, ingredients list says: "chicken and may contain up to l5% chicken broth. They didn't mention MSG, but the chicken broth is loaded with MSG. If you read the ingredients list on Perdue beef or chicken (raw) which advertises no artificial ingredients, you find chicken or beef: followed by natural flavors or natural flavoring (which are names MSG is hidden under in our foods.

I think you will find small amounts of black strap molasses won't harm your little one, but don't give him any honey until after he is one year old. His little system isn't built to handle that just yet. I would also hold off on the apple cider vinegar until he is a little older. When you do start apple cider vinegar, remember the adult dosage is usually l tsp. to l Tbsp. and he is much smaller and would take much less of it. After he is one year old, you will probably find that a teaspoon of honey per day will also help with those allergies. When I first heard this, I tried to figure out the rationale behind this. I finally concluded that the honey is doing the same thing that expensive shots for allergies do. That is why you also are told to be sure the honey is produced within a fifty mile radius of where you live: the bees collect the pollen within a fifty mile radius from the hives, which means you are desensitizing your little one to all the pollens within a 50 mile radius, which is the same thing those shots are given for: desensitization to pollens. I would also hold off on other bee products until he is at least l year old since honey presents a problem. I've never heard or read that they do, but it's a chance I wouldn't want to take. Please do not do what I see a lot of parents doing - letting their children have carbonated beverages instead of drinking water. None of them have any nutrition in them - just colored water, sugar and chemicals. You may never see it in print but all carbonated beverages are harmful to the kidneys. If I had known this when my children were little, I would never have let them have the first sip of any soda pop or carbonated beverages. Believe me when I tell you they are harmful, because I saw 4 children 4 to l0 years old, who were spilling protein (proteinuria) in their urine.

Remembering something I had read several years earlier in a medical journal, I asked about their carbonated beverage intake. All 4 of them drank them instead of water. Changing nothig except not letting them have anything to drink except milk, water, and fruit juice and checking them one week later, 3 or them were negative for proteinuria and the l0 yr. old who had the maximum level (4+ proteinuria) on first examination was down to a trace of proteinuria. Her mother said she had done without them until she got one on the way to the clinic that morning.

Oh, in case your little fellow lucked up and is being breast fed by his mother, tell Mom to stop drinking milk and see if his allergy problems decrease. It may sound silly but I was being sure to drink at least a quart of sweet milk per day when breast feeding my third child, and he is the one who had the worst problems, especially to milk. When I got him onto a soy formula, it was like having a totally different baby. For the first time ever, I woke a sleeping baby up to make sure he was alright, because he cried an awful lot and seldom slept longer than l hour. After that first bottle of Sobee, he slept for 13 hours which caused me to wake him up to make sure he was alright. He was- I guess he was just exhausted from all the misery while on the milk formula. Also what Mom eats or drinks gets into her milk that the baby gets.

Another thing to try to avoid is food coloring in any vitamins or minerals that you give your little ones. These can also cause problems. Kids love the Flintstone vitamins/minerals but all that food coloring, sugar and flavoring are totally unnecessary and may trigger allergies. One of my nurse co-workers little granddaughter (at the age of 5 yrs) was having one urinary tract infection after another. I told her that they should watch everything the child ate or drank, because something was triggering those infections. A few months later she greeted me with "We found it, we found it". My reply was I didn't know it was lost - what did you find? She then told me that getting rid of the Flintstones also got rid of her urinary tract infections.

Hope these answers are helpful. If not, just post your reply back and if I don't have the answer, I'll see if I can find the answers for you. I think you are already giving this little fellow the most important thing which is love.