The Jiang-Su Provincial Hospital of Nanjing, China, is a foundation of mainstream medical practice combined with traditional Chinese medicine. Here, an expanded understanding of the human body and its functions are approached with complete balance-the best of both health-care worlds.

Health care is an issue in China because there are so many people who need care. Holistic, or ancient Chinese medicine, is often less costly to the public than mainstream medical treatment. It's a very efficient way for the medical care system to operate in China, using more of the old ways to treat the body in health and disease through a provincial hospital such as this.

Taking care of a baby who has special medical or health needs can become challenging for a parent. In Chinese traditional medicine, a baby under a physician's care may have Chinese Tuina acupressure massage as a main treatment for mild medical conditions such as colic, and also be given a mainstream medical plan for severe conditions.

Chinese Tuina massage currently is found as a main health-care regime in more than 75 percent of young infants' medical-care cases in China. I found this amazing as one can only imagine just how many massages that several million children and adults receive in China every day.

Tuina is now being introduced to the outside world. Since China was not always open to any type of entry into their society, I felt very lucky, as an American, to be included in a study group with the best pediatric division in China.

I was not alone. I met a woman having a small box lunch outside the hospital grounds. She was studying at Jiang-Su, researching cancer for Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She told me that the level of doctors' skills at this medical facility is a rarity in our Western world. 
My doctor and teacher, Dr. Yin Ming, head of the pediatric division, is a dainty woman, about 5 feet 1 inch tall with great compassion for the infants and children who come to her for treatment. She studied in her home country to become a medical doctor and acupuncturist, and then specialized in pediatric Tuina, or Chinese massage, for small children. During our sessions, her daughter accompanied her and translated Chinese medical text into English so we could understand.

Learning Tuina

Tuina massage is an important component of traditional Chinese recovery therapy in which diseases are cured by the operator's manipulations of the patient's body to stimulate the energy meridians, collaterals and points. The earliest record of Tuina treatment in China is in the Yellow Emperor's Internal Classic, a medical treatise published in the fifth century, B.C. It includes a chapter on blood, qi (energy) and mental/physical conditions as they relate to the Tuina treatment of diseases.

According to Luan Changye, an infant-Tuina expert in Beijing, "When a person is in frequent shock and the passages of the meridians, collaterals are blocked, disease attacks him mostly in the form of numbness, and should be treated by massage. This indicates that Tuina therapy is able to promote the circulation of qi and blood, remove obstructions of the meridians and collaterals, and benefit joint movement.

"The biophysical and biochemical changes of the muscles resulting from massage are evident. These biological changes invigorate lymphatic flow, facilitate blood circulation, and strengthen metabolism, thus reducing swelling, preventing hemorrhage and old bleeding (also called 'eliminating the stale and stagnant'), tonifying the tendons and bones, strengthening the contraction of the ligaments, and playing a bilateral function in sedating the nerves and inhibiting analgesia.

"All these facts have proved that Tuina therapy is able to relieve organic diseases and to eliminate functional disturbance. This therapy is simple, economical and free from side effects, sparing not only infants from the bitterness of medication and the pain of injections, but also their parents from worry. Infants cooperate with, and easily accept, this therapy because the manipulations produce comfortable sensations on their body surfaces."
Because it is relatively easy to learn, Tuina infant therapy can be readily taught to parents to apply at home.

Hands-On Learning

Learning from the other doctors in the clinics at the hospital was a practical hands-on technique. We learned through direct contact with babies and mothers. Even after spending the time learning the holistic Chinese medicine approach, however, I feel there is still so much to learn from their ancient ways. The Chinese base all medical treatment on the functions of the elements in nature. Heaven, earth and the elements found in the body are the tools by which they diagnose and treat symptoms. The balance of these elements with one another in the human body often determines the outcome of focused treatment. Herbs, plants and their essences that affect this balance are available now in modern forms.

A good baby massage provides relaxation and often relief from pain, such as colic, when applied properly. It is always a good idea to determine the general health of a baby through a mainstream doctor before beginning any massage or holistic therapy, to be sure there is no contraindication for the direct application. 

However, massage is not a replacement for mainstream medicine. For example, one would use mainstream medicine to treat a broken bone with an X-ray and a cast. When a baby has colic, though, a massage, combined with aromatherapy, for the digestion may be indicated.
What puzzled me most was the expectation of the doctors in China that each patient needs to accept more responsiblity for his or her own health. I then came to realize that we Westerners have poor knowledge of what the Chinese do concerning health care.

Chinese patients have to explain themselves to their doctors-their habits, functions, diet (did they eat too many fried foods?), exercise regimes, and career, as well as the home-life environments that they created for daily living.

If a child had a preexisting poor health condition and the parents already knew about it, they often were scolded for waiting too long for treatment. In comparison, Americans, as a whole, are just learning to accept full responsibility for their health.

This all leads to an interesting point: Massage is not an extravagant expense in China. It is a way of life to promote good health in the human body.

A young infant is a blind study for massage. Since a baby has no previous programming about the physiological effects massage may have on the body, he or she does not know how or why it feels good.

Value Of Touch

Massage and human touch have a common thread globally. Throughout history, most people have shown a common need to give and receive love, and to nurture and care for other human beings, especially one's own family. The deep inner drive from Mother Nature sets the stage for human need to nest and procreate. Before a baby is conceived, there is physical contact, often accompanied by love, between parents. The child is the result of physical contact between man and woman, meeting in the act of love, intimacy and touch. After birth, the baby's instinctive survival mechanism is a drive for physical connection to the parental figures. Touch creates human emotions and feelings. 

Fig 1.  Making baby ready for massage.  Even with the smallest of infants, ACHT hormones can be stimulated in the brain.

Massage can become an integral part of a baby's life for years to come. Parents who have learned how to give their baby a massage often say how wonderful it is to receive massage back from their children as they grow older. The aftereffects of massage seem to live on in our children. Parents comment when they come home after a hard day of work to find their children eager to give a foot massage, and a relaxing shoulder massage, accompanied by tickling, giggling and laughter. Parents often say how glad they were to have learned how to establish positive touch, communication, and to give their children pediatric massage.

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