I’m happy to introduce Kid Row’s second guest blogger: Stephanie Harris, a local chiropractor and mother of young children. Please enjoy Stephanie’s post and contact me via the contact link (upper right-hand corner) if you would be interested in doing a guest blog yourself.

Health and Your Childʼs Symptoms

It can be distressing as a parent to watch your child endure the uncomfortable symptoms of a cold or flu. We donʼt want to see our children suffer unnecessarily. But have you ever considered that the expression of symptoms can be good for your childʼs health?

For example, an elevated body temperature helps the immune system to kill a pathogen. The watery eyes and runny nose that accompany a cold are a way for the childʼs body to flush out that pathogen. When we get sick, the immune systemʼs job is to once again get the body well. And a childʼs body does this by manifesting symptoms.

But hereʼs the tricky thing about all those pesky symptoms: they appear long after the balance of health has been altered. In fact, symptoms are the last thing to show up in the course of a disease or illness. By the time that nose is running and you are chasing your toddler around the house with a tissue, her immune system is already fighting off the offending bug in full force. And, believe it or not, that fever and the head congestion are just what she needs to effectively and efficiently rid her body of the invader, once and for all.

There are natural ways you can support your childʼs healing process during such bouts of symptom expression. Health-restoring treatments such as chiropractic, acupuncture, homeopathic remedies, and herbal supplements can help strengthen the childʼs immune response from the inside-out. Health comes from within. A childʼs body is perfectly designed to regulate itself and to deal with slight imbalances in itʼs homeostasis.

Over-the-counter pharmaceuticals do not actually heal the body; instead they suppress symptoms. Giving your child symptom-suppressing medications can actually stifle the natural course of the healing process. They may indeed alleviate the childʼs discomfort.

Understandably, this makes you, the parent, feel better because your child is not suffering. But in the long run it makes your childʼs body have to work harder to overcome the illness because the natural course of the recovery has been interrupted or stifled. Symptom-suppressing medications operate from the outside-in, whereas the body was designed to heal itself from the inside-out. By the time the symptoms show up, the child is already well on her way to recovery. Getting through the symptom part of the illness can be messy, to say the least, but your childʼs body will be stronger because of it. Those pesky symptoms are a means to an end, and a childʼs body knows just how to heal itself.

Stephanie Harris, D.C., has a family wellness practice in downtown Durango. She can be reached at drstephdc@gmail.com.

Below is an interesting article on vitamin D from the New York Times’ Well blog. This is another one of the medical quandaries that so bedevil parents: not enough may be bad, too much may be bad and they don’t know how much is good. It’s easy to get yourself twisted up about these matters, but a friend of mine gave me great advice shortly after I first become a mother: listen to the experts but when it comes to making a decision, trust your instincts. You know your child better than anyone.

 The Miracle of Vitamin D: Sound Science, or Hype?

By TARA PARKER-POPE

Imagine a treatment that could build bones, strengthen the immune system and lower the risks of illnesses like diabetes, heart and kidney disease, high blood pressure and cancer.

Some research suggests that such a wonder treatment already exists. It’s vitamin D, a nutrient that the body makes from sunlight and that is also found in fish and fortified milk.

Yet despite the health potential of vitamin D, as many as half of all adults and children are said to have less than optimum levels and as many as 10 percent of children are highly deficient, according to a 2008 report in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Read more.

San Juan Basin Health Department is offering a vaccination clinic open to everyone from 2 to 6 p.m. Friday at the north entrance of the Durango Mall. The shots are free. H1N1 vaccinations are also available at City Market and Walgreens for anyone 10 years old and older. At these locations, there is an administrative fee and the charge varies among stores. For more information call the FluLine, 247-5702 ext. 1520 or visit the health department’s Web site at www.sjbhd.org.

Homegrown tomatoes should be considered a gateway drug. The first taste is ecstasy and afterward life without them seems intolerably bland. Soon you’re trying anything that can be grown in a backyard or sold at a Farmers Market. Backyard real estate once occupied by flowers or grass is tilled under and put into production. Your habit may be expensive, but you’ll do anything to feed it.

So I’d found myself in this advanced state of addiction to local, fresh food when I looked in our frig and wondered, “What about milk?”

More than two years ago, I read this article in The New York Times about the growing market for raw milk, as opposed to the pasteurized variety available in stores.

Pasteurization involves heating and quickly cooling milk to kill pathogens such as E. coli and salmonella.

Raw milk drinkers, however, argue that the process also destroys beneficial bacteria, proteins and enzymes that contribute to a stronger immune system and better digestive health.

Interstate sales of raw milk were banned 20 years ago by the Food and Drug Administration, but regulation is up to the states.

In Colorado, the sale of raw milk is illegal but the “work around” is to buy a share of a cow. In compensation for paying the bovine’s room and board, shareholders receive milk.

I was drawn to the idea for several reasons. I keep learning about more and more people my age suffering from nebulous immune disorders, which, it is theorized, can result from growing up in an overly sanitized environment. Because the body doesn’t know benign bugs from bad ones, it can’t respond appropriately. See this entry on The New York Times’ Well blog for more about that. So there’s certainly a parsimony of logic to me in the raw-milk-equals-good-bacteria-equals-better-health argument.

Then there’s the environmental argument. Even when I buy organic milk, it still comes from cows that reside who knows where. It has to be put in plastic jugs and driven hundreds of miles to my store. I recycle the jugs but that still consumes resources in transportation and processing.

Finally, there’s keeping it local. I want my consumer dollar going to someone I’ve met, in the community where I live.

So with this impetus, I started to investigate. According to realmilk.com, there are two raw milk providers in the Durango area, Nativo Farms and James Ranch. I called both and had all my questions answered with utmost friendliness and helpfulness. James Ranch’s cow share program is a little more costly and closes down in the winter. Nativo Farms is operating for the first time through the winter this year. So two weeks ago I signed the contract and made my first pick-up at Nativo Farms, located a couple miles south of Elmore’s Corner. (Nativo Farms now has a waiting list, according to the Web site).

This is how the economics broke down: for a one-time payment of $5, a $5 bottle fee and a $39 monthly fee for a share and half, we get a gallon and a half of raw milk a week. After start-up, it breaks down to not much more than I was paying for the organic stuff at the grocery store.

Raw milk enthusiasts have described the taste as richer, creamier and more complex. Personally, since we already were drinking whole milk, I didn’t find it much different in thickness or richness. But there is an extra dimension that is difficult to describe. It’s like milk, but more vividly, more intensely so. My 3-year-old seems oblivious to any nuanced flavor differences and chugs it with the same happy abandon as the store-bought stuff.

I won’t argue that pasteurization hasn’t played a valuable public safety role, but I think it comes down to the farm and the farmer. I’d rather trust a person I can meet and a place I can see than a faceless industry. But maybe that’s just the addict in me speaking.