Anti-Stress Nutrition Programme to Improve Mood,
Health, Behaviour and Learning
By Brenda Sampson
HOW WE BEGAN
The articles in this book have been written one at a time over a period of fifteen years. Some first saw the light as items in our newsletters. They have been put together to make a booklet to help families with health, learning, or behaviour problems. There is some repetition; I hope this will help the information to be absorbed; because the information is important.
People sometimes wonder how it was that a senior citizen with no children should start a hyperactivity association. After I retired from the Wellington Public Library in 1972, I was asked to take charge of the library of the I.H.C. Society. Parents would write from all over New Zealand, asking for help in educating intellectually handicapped children. One mother wrote that she had a severely brain injured daughter. She was almost totally blind and deaf; also hyperactive; the hyperactivity was the worst; could I help her? In 1976 I could find nothing; but a year later I read that a Hyperactivity Association had been formed in Sydney; the parents were using the Feingold programme, and found it a wonderful help. I wrote and asked for information. A year later they invited Feingold to come to Australia on a lecture tour. I wrote and asked if he could come to New Zealand too. In the end he did not come, but we formed an association anyway; beginning with about twelve women who met in our home. One had been using the Feingold programme for three months with her son of four and a half years. She said, "After three days, I wept tears of joy, there was such a change in him. He sat still for an hour, and drew a picture and finished it. We hung it on the wall. Before, he would have lost his temper with it in three minutes, screwed it up, and thrown it on the floor."
I asked, "Is he your only child?" "Oh, yes; he was so awful that we took damned good care not to have another. My husband was on the point of leaving me; he blamed me, and I blamed him."
"Do you all use the same programme?" "Yes, and after two months, my husband realised that he himself had been struggling with hyperactivity all his life."
There was another mother at that first Meeting, with a four and a half year old son. She went home and started using the Feingold programme. She rang me about a week later and said, "We have had the loveliest day! It's the first day in his whole life that I have ever enjoyed his company!" Before going further, I would like to emphasise that children under five usually benefit very quickly and completely from the Feingold good-behaviour programme. The younger the child, the better it works. Much stress and trauma are saved by an early start. Many mothers have said, "Oh, if only I had known this sooner!"
Another thing worth mentioning, is that the Feingold programme is a healthy diet, and where the whole family use it, all the members will receive some health benefit. If the mother can talk to other family members and win their cooperation for all to use the same menu, it becomes much easier both for the mother and for the hyperactive child.
Our association was formed in 1977. At the same time, a Waikato Hospital paediatrician Dr Hindle, and a dietitian, Mrs Janelle Priest, were treating ten children with the Feingold programme. Five of the children made a good recovery; three improved somewhat; two made no improvement.
Dr Hindle and Mrs Priest published a report of the work with these ten children, in the NZ Medical Journal 26.7.78. About a year later, Mrs Priest said she was using the Feingold programme with over a hundred children. I asked about the success rate; she said the proportion was about the same; about 50% greatly improved; about 30% some improvement; about 20% no improvement. Dr Feingold was an allergy specialist; he said if a hyperactive child did not improve with his programme, detective work was needed to discover what other substance(s) the child was reacting to.
In the early 1980's I spoke to Mrs Priest again and enquired whether she was still busy with hyperactive children. She said, "Oh, no; the numbers have gone right down; we have very few now." She thought there were two reasons:1) They had good publicity in Hamilton, and most parents there knew better than to give children dyed and artificially flavoured food containing preservatives. 2) Mrs Priest had turned her attention to allergic babies. She found that if allergic babies were treated early, hyperactivity did not develop. The work was time-consuming; about two hours for each appointment; but very worthwhile.
I used to ask mothers who rang, about the hyperactive child's history. Many were adopted, so the mother didn't know; but where it was her natural child, the history was usually difficult pregnancy, difficult birth, colic, sleeplessness, constant crying or screaming. Often the child had been hyperactive in the womb, "kicking the mother to pieces." This probably means that the mother is ingesting toxins that are affecting the baby; she should switch at once to the Feingold programme and cut right down on anything containing caffeine, preferably none at all. The main culprits are the Cola drinks, sports drinks (both bad for teeth as well), tea, coffee and anything containing guarana (another form of caffeine).
In 1982 Maureen Minchin published the first edition of "Food for Thought", which is about food allergy in infants, and how to prevent it. She said that colic, with its torment of sleeplessness and constant screaming, is caused by allergy; and can easily be prevented, if the mother is willing to breastfeed and eat sensibly herself, and to learn how to do it wisely. La Leche League and allergy groups can give information, as well as the book itself.
Mrs Minchin was a historian doing postgraduate research at Oxford University, when she had her first baby, "and learnt at firsthand the nightmare of colic and mismanaged breastfeeding." Her research switched abruptly from medical history to infant nutrition, and what she found in the university library proved more helpful than the advice of the many lay and professional advisers whom she consulted. When she returned to Australia, she was asked to visit and help mothers of colicky babies. What she learned in these six years is included in "Food for Thought".
Colic is an old fashioned name for allergy, and allergy is acquired very early in life. Minchin says that all the very severely colicky babies she worked with, had been given a complementary bottle of foreign protein in the maternity hospital. Dr Kalokerinos, famous for saving babies' lives, insists that the first thing that goes into a baby's mouth must be the mother's nipple. Two other ways of giving a baby allergies are, 1) bottle feeding and 2) if the mother has allergies she does not know of, and eats an allergic food while pregnant or breastfeeding, the baby can become allergic to the food. Allergic foods are often craved. If the mother binges on one or more foods during pregnancy, it will probably be an an allergic food, and the baby will become sensitive to it.
In 1982, our association was five years old, and we had learned that many hyperactive children start life as colicky babies. Research in Queensland by Dr Patricia Holborow showed that 42% of hyperactive children surveyed had actually been diagnosed as allergic; and in 65% of the families there were other members who were allergic. It seemed much easier to prevent allergy occurring than to cure hyperactivity later on; so we changed our name to the Wellington Allergy and Hyperactivity Association, and we have worked in both fields ever since. The experience of these years is that the Feingold programme reduces physical stress, and is a good first step in treating both allergy and also hyperactivity/ADD.
THE FORESIGHT ASSOCIATION FOR PRE-CONCEPTION CARE
Perhaps young couples wishing to have a child, may not know that one can decide to have an easy conception, a comfortable pregnancy, and an easy birth. These are not a matter of luck, but of choice. When both parents eat healthily and have a healthy lifestyle before conception, the pregnancy will be more comfortable, the birth less difficult, and the baby healthier and more peaceful. Foetal alcohol syndrome is now very real with more alcohol being drunk these days. It is most essential for the mother to remain completely alcohol free (and of course not smoke) when trying to become pregnant and when pregnant. Probably good advice for the fathers as well!
In Britain, an organisation called Foresight was founded in the late 70's to guide parents how to do this. In New Zealand the Foresight programme is available in two excellent books and a video. There is also a Foresight cookbook, ask your public library to buy them.
