Integrative Medicine: A Pediatrician’s Perspective

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What is Integrative Medicine?

Integrative Medicine takes the best of mainstream conventional medicine and marries it with the best of holistic medicine. It focuses on your child as an individual and looks at the root cause of any problems your child might have. The emphasis is on nutrition and lifestyle interventions that boost the body’s own natural healing responses to treat and prevent further illness. It does not just treat symptoms, but works to enhance your child’s emotional and physical health from the inside out. 

How Can Integrative Medicine Help My Child?

Integrative approaches have been used to help children with many chronic conditions, including allergies, asthma, and autoimmune conditions like Crohn’s Disease, Lupus and Ulcerative Colitis. It can help with chronic pain conditions including abdominal pain and headaches. It can also be used to optimize the potential of children with developmental problems such as autism and can provide an alternative treatment approach for children with anxiety, depression, and ADHD. 

Healthy children also benefit from integrative approaches to health care. Prevention of illness by improving nutrition, minimizing toxic exposures, and teaching healthy mindfulness habits can improve the lives of all children.

What Does an Integrative Treatment Plan Look Like?

Integrative medicine is not about turning away from conventional treatment, although the focus on treating root causes of illness may mean that your child will need less conventional therapy over time. Integrative treatment plans concentrate on optimizing nutrition and improving the health of the gut microbiome, which is the term for the trillions of bacteria in your gastrointestinal tract that help keep the immune system in balance.  Integrative treatment encourages judicious use of select vitamins and supplements based on your child’s particular needs.  It provides tools for your family to help manage stress, including mindfulness, and modalities such as craniosacral massage and acupuncture (yes, it can be done painlessly in children!).

Childhood is the opportune time to explore integrative approaches because children are still actively growing and developing. Learning tools to address underlying (root) causes of illness allows true healing to happen and empowers parents and children to become the healthiest version of themselves.



Thank you to today’s Guest Blogger, Teresa Esterle, M.D., Ph. D, FAAP.
Dr. Teresa Esterle joined Alliance Integrative Medicine two years ago, after 17 years in practice as a Board-certified pediatrician on the west side of Cincinnati. A native of Louisville, Kentucky, she received her medical degree from Vanderbilt University and completed her Pediatric Residency training at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, where she served as chief resident. Dr. Esterle completed her Integrative Medicine Fellowship through the Arizona Center of Integrative Medicine and received training in acupuncture through the UCLA’s Helms Medical Institute, recently passing the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture Boards. She is currently pursuing her functional medicine certification.

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