The Xiaoxiao FISTQ Children Centre

The Xiaoxiao Centre was started in 2005 in Milan, Italy: it is a paediatric clinic treating children with tuina and acupuncture, with the support of the Federation of Italian Schools of Tuina and Qigong (FISTQ).
The clinic is now operating for the 6th year and offers a course free (or partially free) treatments for tree pilot-studies: “cure and prevention of winter respiratory diseases” (cough, catarrh, fever, etc.), the “quiet-project”, for children who have hard times in keeping their body and mind calm, that is, in sleeping quietly, in staying still, in maintaining their attention on something and "chronic pain in children" project.
Other children have come to the Xiaoxiao Centre for problems as atopic dermatitis, infant abdominal pain, poor appetite, gastro-oesophagus reflux, slow growing, constipation, nocturnal enuresis, headache, cryptorchidism, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, Tourette’s syndrome.
In the first 5 years we have treated 140 children, aged from 2 months to 12 years, for a total of 781 sessions.
Treatments are individually designed according to Chinese diagnosis (that is, they are not based on preset protocols) and use tuina as the main method, supported where appropriate with acupuncture, moxibustion, cupping, ear-seeds, guasha, and plum-blossom needle.
Data are recorded through a specifically designed clinical chart, available to other centres, so to build a network for gathering and exchanging information.
A semi-structured interview is given to all the parents during the follow-up treatment, in order to have suggestions, to know how they felt in the centre, how they evaluate the therapeutic results after some time, and if they continued to use tuina at home.
Xiaoxiao is also a Training Centre for tuina practitioners and acupuncturists who choose to treat children: up to now, more than 50 colleagues have taken a basic or advanced clinical course .

Parental cooperation
Cooperation with parents is extremely important to support paediatric treatment, both in the treatment of chronic conditions and in preventing future illness. In Europe we do not usually have the chance to treat 3 times a week as in China, therefore daily tuina done by the parents is a great support to the treatment.
Caregivers are then taught to apply an individually designed tuina sequence at home: by doing it regularly, treatment is reinforced, their self-confidence is supported, and the child-parent relationship is improved (of course, always without making them feel guilty if they do not do it). They also learn some “emergency” sequences (in case of common cold, fever, constipation, etc.).
We pay attention to find a way to modify diet and daily habits when needed.
As practitioners, we have group meetings with a psychotherapist, working on a better observation and understanding of the relationship between child and parents, focusing on our answers in the clinical setting.
Caregivers can also attend a two-days course, where they get a basic knowledge of Chinese Medicine and of specific children physiology, diagnosis, tuina techniques, thus acquiring the ability to recognise the main clinical patterns and to design and apply a treatment.

For further infos: info@fistq.org

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