Visiting our Sick Children

Visiting the Sick is a Work of Mercy. As mothers we have the responsibility to prevent illnesses as much as possible, nourish for health, and care for our sick children. While taking on these responsibilities we should not forget that we should also visit our sick children.

Panic vs. SOP

As mothers, we can easily panic at any illness, symptom, and perhaps even at the very prospect of our children catching a disease. When we do this, we can forget everything we know and start giving our children medical care that goes against our instincts and values which may even hinder our goals of comfort and recovery. It may just come with experience and prayer that we are able to go from panic mode to simply implementing our plan of action, but we can’t implement a plan of action that we don’t have and perhaps just having it can help us avoid panic mode and go more easily to implementation. So, the first step in caring for our sick children is to implement a plan.

A Natural Plan of Action

The bodies of little children need rest, fluids, and time to recover from illness. They also need prayer, “cariño” (loving caresses, gentle words, etc.), and company. They will still need nourishing foods and we can ease their suffering by alleviating their symptoms. With all these needs in mind, a checklist can help us make sure that we are providing everything they need.

The goal of this plan is to provide for these needs, support the healing process naturally, and have clear guidelines as to when allopathic medical intervention is necessary. It is based on the teachings of St. Hildegard about health and healing.

• Rest – First we asses whether they need bed-rest to recover. Vomiting, uncharacteristic refusal to eat, uncharacteristic or unexplained tiredness, belly pain are clear signs that our child should go to bed. Then we take them straight to bed. They should not watch screens or have sugary foods, both of which will prevent them from being able to fall asleep. They can read or play with a bed-friendly toy. Its good to have a toy or book they like reserved especially for when they are sick so that we can be sure that they won’t be bored of it.

• Fluids – Fluids are needed to recover from illness. With a lot of fluid passing through the body, it is better able to discard the pathogens or toxins. Whether it is a cold or eczema, keeping the fluids moving through the body will help the body “clean up” better and heal faster. Acute illness also increases the chances of dehydration, so it’s important to pay attention to the fluid intake of our sick children and be on the lookout for signs of dehydration such as dry lips, thin/flat veins, and low urine output. At these signs we give them an electrolyte drink to support hydration. A simple recipe is water, lime, and salt. This works well in most cases but if not, there are also better recipes and store-bought products that would be the next step. Dehydration in young children can become a medical emergency that requires IV fluids. Giving them too much to drink can lead to vomiting, so we start by giving them small sips at room temperature or warmer. We can give them fluids as often as every 15 minutes if they accept it, and at the very least each time they wake up from resting.

• Medicinal Tea – An efficient way to administer fluids and medicine together is through tea. It usually more palatable than plain water during illness and we can make it tasty to encourage consumption. Mucus, coughing, and a tickle in the throat could be the early signs of a debilitating illness, or it could be from a bit of dust. Regardless of whether they are showing mild signs, they are very ill, or we suspect that they might have caught something on an outing, we may give them a general tea. A multipurpose tea includes:

  • Calendula – antiviral (whole flowers, filtered out after brewing)

  • Fennel – digestive aid (whole seeds, filtered out after brewing)

  • Sage – antibacterial, throat/cough soothing (powder, added before boiling)

  • Cinnamon – antiviral, antibacterial (powder, added before boiling)

  • Honey – loosens mucus, adds taste (added after brewing)

• Prayer – The most important and effective thing we can do to help our sick child is go to Jesus. We should do it constantly as we care for our child and when they are settled and ideally asleep we’ll be able to spend some dedicated time praying for them. If our child has a serious injury or a chronic illness we should either make an appointment with the parish Priest or take them to a Healing Mass or Healing Service where they have the opportunity to receive the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.

• Food – Their meals throughout acute illnesses should be chicken broth with noodles, rice, or bread with butter on them (helps with cough and congestion). It is helpful to have a one or two servings of broth in the freezer so that we don’t have to urgently make broth at the onset of every illness. According to St. Hildegard oats are “not good for those who are very ill and cold” and milk is something that “weak and sick people should consume very little.” Boiling milk or eating cheese instead is a way to get the benefits without much of the harm from milk. Grass-fed organic milk is best for both sick and healthy children.

• Visits – When our child is sick in bed we may have the opportunity to “get more done” around the house. As temping as it is to do this and as necessary as it may seem sometimes, we should be careful. It’s easy to feel like we are doing a lot to care for them while at the same time ignoring their emotional needs during this time. It’s lonely, boring, and sad to be sick in bed all day. Not all children are able to communicate their needs to us, and even those who typically are may not be able during an illness. Rather than expecting them to ask for what they need, we should frequently check in on them, ask, and offer. In addition to checking in on their physical needs we should spend some time simply being with them. When the other children are sleeping or busy, it may seem like the only chance we have to do X or Y task, but let us prioritize spending some time by having a little chat or simply sitting in the silence together with our sick little one. It’s a sacrifice of love that can communicate to them, and remind us, that they are not a burden to us, and that they will not only be cared for by us, but loved in sickness and in health.

• Love – Speaking of love, Jesus tells us clearly “Love one another, as I have loved you.” We can do all of this care-taking and still forget to do the one thing that is needful – which is to love our child. Alternatively we can, and should, do all of these little things with big love like St. Therese of Lisieux teaches us to do. Love is who heals and whether they’ll be sick again next week or if this is not an illness that they’ll recover from, all that matters to them, for us, and to our Lord, is how much we loved them through it.
  

Remedies & Cures

When administering remedies we can have one of two goals: alleviating symptoms or curing the disease. Symptoms have a purpose. Fever kills pathogens and fatigue encourages rest for example. That doesn’t mean that alleviating symptoms does not have a role in caring for our sick child, but we want to be careful not to intervene in healing.

The source of illness is either that something is missing (deficiencies) or there is something that shouldn’t be there. In the second case these include viruses, bacteria, fungi, and synthetic toxins. A general approach to curing an illness is to find out which of these is the culprit and using medicines accordingly.

Fungal – Thyme is an effective antifungal herb. Yeast overgrowth in the gut can be aided with thyme tea, dandruff with thyme essential oil added to shampoo, yeast infections with thyme tea, fungus in toenails with a topical application of diluted essential oil, etc.

Viral – St. Hildegard recommends Calendula for counteracting the effects of any poison (internally) and Plantain for bug bites (topically). They both also have antiviral properties. We can use tea internally for colds, topically for skin viruses such as shingles and chicken pox, and essential oil or tincture for cold sores and canker sores.

Congestion – St. Hildegard recommends cumin for congestion. Spearmint (milder than peppermint, but may be too strong for some children) essential oil diluted to <1% in a diffuser or adding a drop or two to a cotton balls inside a pillowcase is a strong and effective way to clear congestion quickly. Propping up a pillow or holding them upright is a harmless an effective way to help as well.

Sore Throat - When an illness leads to congestion it causes mouth breathing which in turn dries up the throat (the air that comes in from the nose gets moistened) and leads to sore throat. To prevent we can alleviate congestion. St. Hildegard recommends applying aloe vera to the chest as a cure. Sage tea is very soothing for the throat. A salt water gargle reduces throat swelling by drawing fluid out and can reduce coughing that is caused by sore throat.

Cough and Mucus – More than being an uncomfortable symptom, cough and mucus are usually an effective way through which our bodies expel disease. St. Hildegard recommends sugar syrup to help expel mucus when we have unproductive coughs. Sage tea is also soothing and helpful. When managing cough and mucus the goal is to prevent the spread of the disease to other family members. A pañito is a pre-fold cloth diaper that is not used as a diaper, but rather folded in half to expel mucus into and folded again to cover the mouth with when coughing. It can be kept “closed” and replaced as often as needed.

Fever – St. Hildegard recommends Marshmallow for fevers of any kind. She says to “pound marshmallow in vinegar and drink it in the morning, on an empty stomach, and at night.”

Digestive – St. Hildegard recommends eating Fennel (seed or vegetable) every day for good digestion. Bloating, gas, heartburn, abdominal pain, nausea, constipation, poor appetite, indigestion, feeling full to soon, not feeling full enough after large meals, and bad breath, are all signs of digestive dysfunction. Good digestive health is necessary for overall health as it is through digestion that we absorb what is nourishing and expel what is harmful. The BRAT (bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast) diet is recommended as it’s easy to digest for times of more severe digestive distress.

Insomnia – St. Hildegard recommends Poppy Seeds for sleep. They are related to opium. To use them with prudence we are cautious to avoid dependence on them but rather using them temporarily. For example to transition time zones or normalizing a sleeping schedule after several nights of disrupted sleep (postpartum, illness, travel, etc).

Headache – There are three kinds of headaches. Tension headaches come from a tightening of the nerves by neck muscles that need relaxing. A neck massage is the cure for these. A congestion headache (“stuffy head”) can be cured by “eating cloves often” – as per St. Hildegard’s recommendation. Lastly, nervous headaches (migraines for example) are caused by stress, anxiety or other mental issues. The nerves themselves are the source of the pain in this case which makes them the most severe of all. Inhaling lavender essential oil has been backed up by clinical trials as helpful in alleviating migraines.

Depression – When our children get sad, they might need help figuring out why, determining whether they need to accept or change the circumstances, and then taking action in either direction. If they aren’t able to do this, the prolonged and excessive sadness that results can lead to depression. St. Hildegard says pancakes made with equal parts nutmeg and cinnamon and a bit of cloves “make your mind cheerful.” In general a stable routine that includes walking up early, exercise, going outside, and sleeping early is helpful in preventing sad times from turning into extended periods of depression. As emotionally hard as it may be for us to wake up a sad child early and get them to go outside, it is probably going to be harder for them in the long run if we just let them go down a predictably unhealthy path.

Skin – St. Hildegard recommends using yarrow for wounds. After disinfecting it, take “yarrow, cooked gently in water, and that water squeezed out, should be tied gently, while warm, over the cloth which covers the wound.” She recommends doing it this way until the wound is healed “a bit” and then to to “discard the cloth and place yarrow directly on the wound.” For bruises she recommends cooking chickweed in water, squeezing out the water, and frequently placing the warm herb over the wounded area and tying a cloth over it. For burns she says “boil flaxseed in water, dip a linen cloth in the water, and place the cloth over the area of the burn.” In addition to these specific remedies, aloe vera is soothing on any skin injury, itchiness, or discomfort. Topical or ingested sage tea may be helpful in allergic reactions. Many internal illnesses manifest themselves in the skin. St. Hildegard teaches that Nettle is “not at all good eaten raw…, but it is good when cooked, as food for a human. It purges his stomach and takes mucus away from it. Any kind of nettle does this.” It has been traditionally used for many different health issues, and may be helpful when dealing with “inside-out” skin conditions like eczema.

Lice – St. Hildegard says “if a person with many lice frequently smells lavender, the lice will die.”

When to go to the doctor?

As an illness progresses our child may go through ups and downs with their symptoms. If they are not making progress, or going backwards we will naturally get concerned and consider taking them to the doctor. It is important to do this calmly rather than hastily because an unnecessary trip to the doctor may cause more harm than good.

To make sure that we are going to the doctor because our children need to, it’s helpful to research the treatment and procedures offered by the specific medical professional for the specific symptoms our child is exhibiting, as well as the process for diagnosing a particular illness.

As mothers we typically suspect what our children may be suffering from. This is a simple heuristic to know whether it makes sense to go to the doctor urgently.

- Is the illness severe?

- Is it straightforward to diagnose?

- Is there a cure? (As opposed to treatment tailored to symptom management.)

Some examples of these are bacterial infections, pink eye, strep throat, tuberculosis, hepatitis C, iron deficiency anemia, fractures, dehydration, carbon monoxide poisoning.

If the illness is hard to diagnose, treatment for a cure is not available (ex. viral infections), or the illness is not severe, it may not make sense to seek medical attention.

Preventing Illnesses

In order to prevent many illnesses from taking root, we can support our child’s immune system by making sure they are getting enough sleep, drinking enough water, and eating enough protein. Other than that, we can prevent them from catching the illness by washing their hands often when out, cleaning surfaces that they are likely to touch a lot, and limiting high-risk activities.

Visiting the Sick

“Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was … ill and you cared for me.”

“Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Mathew 25:34-40).

Visiting the sick is a Work of Mercy, and in caring for our sick children we are taught that we care for Christ Himself. This reality invites us to do it well, and not just materially well, but spiritually well also. We are called to care for our sick children as an act of Divine Love. If we are able to make the material aspects of the process simpler for ourselves, this can help us stay focused. When we pay attention, these situations can confront us with how our love is lacking, they give us a chance to lay down our lives for others, and push us to grow in Love.

Let us pray that we may be conduits of Christ’s love and healing to our children in their times of need.

St. Joseph, Hope of the sick, pray for us.

St. Peregrine, pray for us.

St. Martha, pray for us.