Healthy mother healthy child

“I reach past my reflection in the mirror of my medicine cabinet to what lies behind the door. On those glass shelves i find an alchemy of herbs, medicinal products, and conventional elixirs. I use a combination of these things in caring for my body, all the while remaining true to the most basic doctrine of medical law: ‘First do no harm.’
As a health care professional, as a mother, and as a teacher, I feel that I serve as a translator, interpreting from one language, one health system, to another. I speak and respect both both the language of complementary medicine and conventional medicine. My educational background as a registered nurse is in conventional medicine while the past ten years of my life have been dedicated to understanding the intuitive wisdom of the body. Fusing this knowledge transports me to a place where I can see the benefits of both. I live in both of these worlds and I am committed to bringing the wisdom of these two languages together...
Our first clue that something was wrong with Sam was his sudden outbreak of an angry rash that grew to cover his entire body. This irritated skin was red, raw, itchy and sore to the touch... Sam’s skin condition was inherited from me and I was terrified that he would struggle, as I had, with this for his entire life. My struggle with a lifetime of eczema meant there was a constant irritation or uncomfortable reminder that areas of my hands, the inside of my elbows, the back of my knees and sometimes areas on my face were red, itchy and sore...
Over the next two years Sam underwent morning and evening soaks in oatmeal baths and layers of bandages applied to the skin. He looked like a mummy. I realise now that it took something this big and scary to give me the courage to step outside of everything I had been trained to do to help others. I had to find a new way to help my son.
This was the beginning of my journey - the first step in searching for a wider knowledge, a deeper understanding of the roots of the disease... I had been told by the top medical experts in the field that Sam’s condition was unfixable and the only treatment was to try and ease the symptoms and keep him comfortable. Over the next ten years Sam and I learned about natural food, Yoga, meditation, acupuncture and a myriad of other ways for the body to heal itself... We both now live free of eczema. It was a skin problem I had lived with for 35 years. I learned how to let my body heal itself and more importantly, taught my son how to do the same. It really is very simple: if my body gets out of balance, my eczema comes back...”

Healthy mother, healthy child continues to outline the various ways in which Elizabeth Irvine and Sam developed this balance, and gives some simple Yoga exercises that children can enjoy. The article is reproduced courtesy of the book HEALTHY MOTHER, HEALTHY CHILD: Creating Balance in Everyday Life by Elizabeth Irvine and published by Whole Health Publishing, Texas.