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Diva
updated 14 Sep 2010, 09:07
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Fri, Mar 13, 2009
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Rib-tickling goodness!
by Clara Chow

ON A humid Friday afternoon, I arrived with two fidgety kids at Ren Hai Clinic in Chinatown.

Aching from a week’s worth of fatigue, I would have gladly lain down for a spa treatment.

Instead, the tykes were the ones due for a massage.

New to the concept of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) paediatric massage, I had leapt at the chance to try it out with my three-year-old son Julian when the offer of a demonstration session came up.

Fearing that Julian, who has a stubborn streak, might recoil at being touched by a stranger, I recruited my four-year-old niece Rachel to come along for the experience and serve as calming companion.

We were greeted at the clinic by registered TCM practitioner Tan Kiat Hwee, who smilingly ushered us into a brightly-lit room with two massage beds.

Perhaps it was the patient, quietly-firm air that Physician Tan exuded. Both kids went from frisky to pliant, and were soon lying down comfortably on the beds.

As Physician Tan applied some powder on Julian’s right hand and began stroking acupuncture points on his palm with light, deft touches of her ring finger, she explained the principles behind TCM child massage to me.

The paediatric treatment has its roots in the Han Dynasty, some 2,000 years ago, when people discovered they could treat certain children’s ailments by massaging the affected areas with appropriate herbal pastes.

But it was during the Qing Dynasty that paediatric massage (known as xiao er tui na) became a specialised TCM area.

The massage is suitable for infants and children up to the age of seven. But it can continue into adulthood if the patient’s constitution remains weak.

“Success is when kids who frequently fall ill succumb to bugs less often, and recover more quickly than their peers,” said Physician Tan.

She recommends that the massage be performed once or twice a week, with each session lasting about 20 minutes.

With 15 years’ experience, she is currently administering the therapy to some 20 kids.

Among the kids she has treated is a lactose-intolerant baby who stopped throwing up and having stomach upsets after a month of treatment.

Meanwhile, I was marvelling at how my often-hyperactive son was responding to her touch. While he feigned nonchalance at first, pretending to fiddle with his toy, he was soon enjoying the feather-light strokes on his arms and abdomen – meant to, among other things, reduce phlegm and aid digestion.

Soon, Julian’s eyelids were fluttering down, as he started to drift off to a relaxed snooze.

Before the physician pinched the skin around his spine to stimulate the acupuncture points clustered around that area, she warned that it might be a little painful.

But my son was enjoying himself so much that he giggled instead when she administered the “pinch de resistance”.

Later, it was Rachel’s turn.

In short, I left that day with two happy kids who – while not quite stroked into submission – seemed slightly more cheerful and less high-strung than normal.

“It’s a way for young, Westernised parents to understand more about TCM and its effects on kids,” said Physician Tan about the therapy.

While neither Julian nor Rachel has developed any marked immunity to viruses yet (they probably need more than one treatment before any long-term health benefits manifest), I was impressed by anything that can keep those two tots in a placid, hushed mood for 20 minutes at a stretch – without TV, computer games or junk food. That’s tranquillity formother and child, true to the touch.


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