Page 88 - Special Issue: Healthy Baby

Traditional Remedies

for Childhood Illness

By Sarah Pope

homas Jefferson once said that if people let the

government decide which foods they eat and which

Tmedicines they take into their bodies, they will find

themselves in as sorry a state as the souls of those who
live under tyranny.

From the moment our children are born, they are put on the cradle-
to-grave medical path. We are taught that if our children have the slightest
Sarah Pope sniffle or tummy ache, they should be taken to the doctor right away. Antibi-
is the otics and immunizations dominate the practice of modern medicine; dietary
mother of and herbal remedies, and plain old common sense, have been stuffed into

three healthy the closet like a bunch of grandma’s clothes, fusty and old-fashioned, not
children and worth considering in this enlightened scientific age.
a lay expert in When we take the power back into our own hands as mothers and

traditional parents, and use the wisdom of home remedies to treat our children, we are
remedies for adhering to that responsibility for health to which Thomas Jefferson referred.
childhood Instead of bequeathing the health of our children to a governmental body,
illness. parents need the knowledge and confidence to be primary caregivers.

86 Wise Traditions