You may have experienced the benefits of acupuncture yourself. Or perhaps you’ve been lucky enough to never have to seek it out as a treatment, but have a friend or family member who swears by it. But when you’ve tried everything else to manage your child’s chronic headaches, stomachaches, common cold and more, you hesitate. Can acupuncture really be safe for my kid? Won’t sticking needles into them totally freak them out?
It’s understandable that parents would be at first apprehensive about bringing their child to receive acupuncture treatment. But the good news is that there’s no reason not to: acupuncture is safe for children, and it’s also preferable to giving them medications to treat all sorts of illnesses and disorders. The side effects and addictive properties of many stronger medications can be even more harmful to children than they are to adults.
Many children understandably don’t love needles, so they might be scared of receiving acupuncture. Every child is different, but one general positive is that in children, acupuncture needles don’t need to be in as long as they do to treat adults.
Before you seek treatment for your child, make sure that the acupuncturist is licensed to treat children. As long as they are, the next time your child is in need of a safe treatment, there’s no reason to be worried that acupuncture won’t be incredibly helpful. And it just might help them get over their fear of needles, too!