How to improve your Child’s Immunity

Few days ago, I posted a video of my daughter playing with sand on Instagram, and talked about immunity. I received several messages asking how I built my daughter’s immunity.

By the way, if you are not following me on Instagram, please follow for all the updates and quick tips. My Instagram handle is happywomanhood_harshita_mishra.

Coming back to the point, not only playing in dust, strong immunity allows the child to be disease free and infection free during frequent seasonal changes.

Here I am sharing how I ensured that my child has a strong immunity. You also follow these and save your child from frequent ailments and infections.

Nutritious Diet

There is no substitute of a balanced diet loaded with all the nutrients. Nutrients such as iron and vitamin C play a direct role in providing your child immunity against infections. All other nutrients directly or indirectly make important contributions in your child’s immunity. Ensure that your child intakes all the nutrients in required amounts.

I am soon going to post detailed articles on what and how to feed nutritious food to your child. So stay tuned to happywomanhood.

Garlic

Garlic, though not much liked in several households due to its strong smell, is a very potent immunity builder. Garlic contains a compound called allicin which is a strong antibacterial and antifungal agent. Garlic is very effective in preventing and curing seasonal cough and cold.

But raw garlic is more potent. So try to give your child raw garlic somehow.

I started giving my daughter garlic when she was as young as 7 months. When I made soup for her, I added one clove of garlic (crushed) after the cooking part was done. Afterwards, the soup was blended and strained.

Later when she started having solid food, I add one clove of garlic finely chopped to her food.

Turmeric

Everyone knows about the antibacterial and healing properties of turmeric. Curcumin is the compound responsible for these properties of turmeric.

So I always made sure to include turmeric in my baby’s diet. Even in summers, I add a pinch of turmeric to her milk. During winters, I increase the amount to around two pinches.

Condiments

Condiments such as cumin (jeera), nutmeg (jaiphal), carum (ajwain), cardamom (elaichi), fennel (Saunf), ginger (though not exactly a condiment) etc. also help in keeping the health in good condition. Condiments help in improving the health in several ways. In addition to boosting the immunity, they keep the digestion proper.

So make sure you include variety of condiments in your child’s diet. If you think adding all the condiments will be too much, add them in rotation.

Avoid Antibiotics

Whenever our child catches some infection, we panic and are too quick to take him/her to the doctor. While we should never be ignorant about our child’s health, we should not be too quick in giving him the antibiotics either. Find out a doctor who does not prescribe antibiotics unnecessarily. Ask fellow mothers if they know any such doctor, or request your doctor to prescribe antibiotics only if it is absolutely necessary.

If you think that the situation is manageable at home, avoid doctors and allopathic medicines and try to treat the child with home remedies. Decide wisely if the situation actually needs medical help. For example, in case of food poisoning, stomach infection, diarrhea and vomiting, you should immediately seek medical help because dehydration can be really dangerous; but if it is mild throat infection due to season change, antibiotics can be avoided as there are many very effective home remedies for cold and cough.

The point is, avoid antibiotics if possible (only if possible) because the antibiotics ultimately weakens the immune system.

A little exposure to Germs

While it is a good idea to teach your child to wash hands before eating, keeping him/her always in sanitized surroundings is definitely not a good idea. Because no matter what, you cannot absolutely avoid your child’s exposure to germs. Sooner or later, today or tomorrow, he will encounter germs. So help him build his immunity by allowing him a little exposure to germs.

For example, when your child goes to park, let him play the way he wants to. Let him soil his clothes and hands in dirt. Just teach him to not to put anything or his dirty hands in mouth, that’s it. Rest is fine.

But don’t be too fast with this practice. Do this gradually. Give him time to develop his immunity.

Giloy

When dengue became common in our country, we were introduced to giloy and its health benefits. Earlier I thought it is just another ineffective remedy, but I have closely seen and experienced the amazing immunity boosting effects of giloy.

However, consuming giloy is very difficult because of its bitter taste. Thankfully we now have giloy tablets. But kids cannot even swallow tablets or capsules. What to do then? To find out the answer, I tried making giloy syrup at home and giving my daughter. Guess what? She drank it. It was not bitter and a 2-3 years old baby could have it.

So you also give giloy to your kid somehow because it considerable improves immunity. If you want to know my recipe, please let me know in the comments. I will share the recipe soon.

Update: Giloy Syrup recipe has been uploaded. Please visit and do make it at home. Giloy is really very effective.

Homeopathy

If your child still falls ill every time the season changes, give homeopathy a try. Homeopathy is really effective in strengthening the child’s immunity. It is safe and has no side effects. I gave homeopathic medicines to my daughter for building her immunity against seasonal infections and could feel the difference.

Kavachprash

This is the hero of this article. Earlier, I gave Chyawanprash of different leading brands to my daughter. While I believe they must have done some good, I could not observe any noticeable improvement in her immunity.

Luckily, I found On&On Kavachprach (not sponsored), and it worked like magic. It is a bit expensive (Rs. 1275 for 1 kg), but totally worth it. This product improved my baby’s immunity considerably.

Since the day I have started giving this to my daughter, she hasn’t fallen ill, even in the extreme weather of Delhi.

But the problem with this product is that it is not available in the market. It is sold through direct selling. It is available on amazon at really cheap prices (as low as 600 rs) but I doubt that the product delivered would be about to expire (because otherwise it is not possible to provide this product at this low price). You can give amazon a try. If it does not work, message me and I will try to connect you with the direct seller.

Note: This is not sponsored. Information about this product is shared only because it worked wonders.

So this is all I did to ensure a strong immunity for my daughter, and she is doing perfectly fine. I wish your child too good health and a life free of doctors and medicines.

Also read how what are the brain boosting foods for babies and how I kept my baby away from diaper rash.