TRIBUNE – The No FakeMed collective warns of certain useless and sometimes dangerous medical treatments for children.
This forum was written by a group of experts made up of child nurses, midwives, physiotherapists, dieticians, speech therapists, nurses, pediatricians, gynecologists, general practitioners, medical specialists, pharmacists and dental surgeons who are members of the No FakeMed collective.
A child has arrived in your family! Happy event, but very quickly, the euphoria gives way to questions, worries. It’s legitimate, you want the best for your children; however, they do not come with instructions. But beware: at the request of young parents who do not always find an attentive ear in the traditional care system, there is an offer from many “practitioners”, most often not from the caring world.
These so-called therapists without any medical training, coaches, trainers, energy specialists, naturopaths, doulas offer all sorts of “alternative” or “natural” medicines, and make a business flourish, from assisted procreation to early childhood in through pregnancy and birth. Their intentions are not necessarily good, neither for you nor for your baby. Blinded by beliefs that they want you to share at all costs, they play on your fears, your guilt, with arguments from authority, pseudo-scientific jargon, fallacious studies, and offer you a miracle solution. for everything that happens to your child, his crying, his stomach pains, his teething pains, his breastfeeding or sleeping difficulties…
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We caregivers know that your child’s troubles, discomforts and symptoms are real. There is absolutely no question of minimizing them or denying them, and even when they are physiological, that is to say “normal”, they sometimes deserve a diagnosis (even if it was that of “everything is fine”). that only a healthcare professional is authorized to ask.
It is not desirable to offer your children, from an early age, these useless and sometimes dangerous false medicalizations. In the short term, you believe that the effect is beneficial because you have been taken care of and heard during a consultation. This is called the placebo effect, and it is increased by the fact that you pay for this service. But this is not medical care and these practices, in addition to being expensive, can have a real negative impact on your child, his comfort, and yours. Your child needs attention, love and affection. Don’t let anyone impose “fakemeds” on him.
Proposals for unfounded techniques presented as miracle cures are flourishing. We have selected four of them here which seem to us to be particularly problematic, due to their undeserved success and/or the risks they entail:
Osteopathy: dangerous in infants
The use of osteopathy for newborns and infants must absolutely be banned, and we are campaigning against this increasingly systematic care in maternity wards and when returning home. A syndrome has even been invented from scratch to justify manipulation: the “Kiss syndrome”. Know that it does not exist and is not based on any diagnostic or scientific basis.
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A healthy baby has no need for manipulation: the bones and organs do not move spontaneously, neither during delivery nor after. Any manipulation of a baby after birth is unnecessary and can be dangerous. Manipulations of the skull, face and spine in infants under six months are also legally prohibited for osteopaths, who are not health professionals.
Discomfort and pain, on the other hand, can be resolved by non-drug and safe treatments such as massages, babywearing, and above all reassurance from parents via trained professionals.
The Tongue Frenulum Section: Too Much Practiced
The frenulum is a small piece of flesh that connects the tongue to the floor of the mouth, and it is abnormally short in 5 to 10% of the population without this always posing a problem.
However, we are witnessing an explosion of lingual (even labial and buccal) frenotomies. Increasingly, breastfeeding difficulties are incorrectly linked to too short a tongue tie and an early medical intervention is proposed. But as demonstrated by the international scientific consensus, it does not guarantee the improvement of these difficulties or prevent language disorders, and has not proven its effectiveness on the problems of sleep apnea, gastrointestinal reflux. esophageal or food diversification, including preventively.
There may be local complications in terms of scarring or even haemorrhage and ultimately, this gesture presented as innocuous may interfere with breastfeeding and then your child’s diet.
This intervention is therefore generally unjustified. Of course, the difficulties of breastfeeding are real, the start of successful breastfeeding is not necessarily simple. But these difficulties often have another cause, and trained health professionals will be able to give you wise advice.
Aromatherapy: many side effects
We are also seeing an increase in the use of essential oils at all stages of motherhood: before to “boost” fertility, during to relieve the ailments of pregnancy, in children to treat common viruses.
But aromatherapy is in no way an alternative medicine, the oils extracted from plants are very concentrated, have real medical effects, and undesirable effects that we don’t tell you about.
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The benefits of essential oils are more often claimed than proven, and their quality is not always ensured via an increasingly flourishing trade under the pretext of a “natural” product. Some essential oils contain neurotoxic compounds (ketones, terpenes), can cause miscarriages, interfere with the hormonal system and with the development of the fetus. Most are contraindicated during pregnancy, lactation and in young children up to 6 years old.
Amber necklaces: useless and responsible for death
Supposed to help the teeth come out without pain, they are useless and, in France, responsible each year for about thirty deaths by strangulation. Teething is a normal event in the development of a child, and when it is painful, there are much more reliable ways to relieve it, such as cold, toys to bite, massage of the painful areas or even the taking of analgesics on medical advice.
These four examples are just a few of the countless “fakemeds” offered to young parents. We are worried about the rise in power of what clearly appears to us to be abuses. They are mostly useless, costly for families, and can have a real negative impact on the care of children or even lead to a delay in care. We are also concerned about the permeability of certain health professionals, who allow themselves to be tempted by these unfounded practices or do not question them, maintaining a distressing confusion.
We therefore call on professional orders and health authorities to be genuine players in this fight for patient safety, especially for the youngest. Several large-scale actions and important updates seem essential to us. We therefore call on the guardians and health authorities to:
Strengthen the network around perinatal care made up of midwives, pediatric nurses, speech therapists, physiotherapists, pediatricians, gynecologists and general practitioners. Actions of prevention, listening, reception in PMI must be reinforced, and their means made permanent.
Sorting out health training which too often give pride of place to illusory practices. Health authorities must lay down the first principle in medicine, that of doing no harm. This may lead to the removal of these inappropriate methods from PMIs, pharmacies and maternity wards.
Strictly regulate the use of osteopathy with clear and fair information delivered to parents and patients in general.
Carry out an audit in the face of the worrying increase in lingual frenotomies.
Make health promotion and education a great national causebased on reliable and solid scientific sources.
Your child will grow and blossom, bringing its share of difficulties, you will be exhausted, you will want to scream, to cry, but above all to bring him the best. Care of children, if necessary, must be carried out by health and early childhood professionals. All other proposals are only “fake medicine”, and this must stop.