A surprising number of children are using alternative medicines. Twelve per cent of young people are experimenting with unconventional treatments, according to research carried out in the USA, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). There are huge amounts of alternative treatments available, ranging from herbal supplements such as Echinacea, to slightly more unusual therapies, like acupuncture. Alternative therapies, often seen as less invasive than mainstream medicine, are covered more often nowadays by private medical insurance policies like those offered by Freedom.  This means that more children could have access to these popular treatments, if their parents were to obtain a quote for private medical cover.

Thirty eight per cent of adults were also found to have tried alternative treatments in the past year, and children were five times as likely to have tried the therapies, if their parents had also experimented. Alternative and complementary procedures and pills can be used to treat a wide range of illnesses and health problems, the most popular among children being back or neck pain, colds, anxiety or stress, other muscle and skeletal problems and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). While some people have expressed their concerns about the proven safety and effectiveness of such treatments, such as the use of St John’s Wort to treat attention deficit and hyperactivity which has been shown to have no effect on the conditions, the popularity of such procedures cannot be ignored. Children can have access to these alternative medicines through a family health insurance policy or individual child private medical cover if they so wish. The survey also showed that the treatments were also popular among teenagers, who could also be included in family health insurance or on a low cost student health insurance policy.