Picking疳积, this specialized term may be unknown to many novice parents. It is a kind of acupuncture therapy in traditional Chinese medicine for treating children’s anorexia, picky eating, and malnutrition, known as piercing the four gaps. There is also a way to perform meridian incision treatment with a blade, so picking疳积 is often colloquially called picking the fingers or cutting the palm. So, does picking疳积 have scientific evidence?

Many parents, when they find that their child does not like to eat, want to take their child to pick疳积, and even some infants over one year old have been taken to be cut several times by their grandmothers. The intention is certainly for the child’s health and well-being, but when the child is forcibly pressed on the palm, and when the sharp needle or blade is cut into the tender skin to cause bleeding, the child cannot help but cry out in pain, which is extremely heart-wrenching.

By piercing the four-needle points of children and letting them bleed, then picking out the milky blood cells, promoting the restoration of the function of the five internal organs and the smooth operation of meridians and blood Qi, thus achieving the therapeutic purpose. Although the theory is like this, the expected effect varies from person to person. For children with food accumulation and malnutrition, the blood-letting therapy of picking疳积 is almost just a non-preferred auxiliary treatment method.

In recent years, the incidence of picking疳积 has gradually decreased, on the one hand, because the core concept of scientific parenting is gradually advancing, and on the other hand, many parents feel that this method is somewhat cruel to children (especially infants over one year old). If the result is ideal, it can still be tolerable. If the problem of child anorexia cannot be solved, the child will suffer unnecessarily. Moreover, whether the child’s appetite improves due to picking疳积 or due to fear of active eating is not known.

Therefore, when your child shows a dislike for eating:

Firstly, clarify whether your child belongs to malabsorption or malnutrition. If a child does not like to eat, it is often not due to physiological reasons, or a lack of nutrients, or overeating of sweets affecting appetite, or psychological barriers causing them to dislike eating. In all cases, it is necessary to first understand the actual cause and then determine the solution.

Secondly, the first choice should be a treatment method with few side effects on children and easy for children to bear, among the scientific research solutions for physical and mental health, the long history of traditional Chinese medicine is beyond doubt, but in the case of selection, it is still advisable to first choose a treatment method that is less harmful to children and easier for them to endure.