Jane Sheppard – My Personal Story
At the age of 53, I am in deep gratitude for my wonderful life. I live in what I believe is one of the most beautiful areas of Northern California with my amazing teen-age daughter and our beloved labrador retriever. I work at home doing very fulfilling work that I absolutely love. I am healthy and my body continues to get better as I age. Life is good indeed, and I am blessed in many ways.
Why Did I Create Healthy Child?
Through my ongoing research and study of children’s health and well-being, I am aware of many things that can be a lot better. Our current allopathic system of pediatric health care is making our children sicker, not healthier. Babies and children are regularly exposed to thousands of toxic substances in their homes, schools, and surrounding environments. Our antiquated public school system stifles children’s creativity and innate intelligence and perpetuates the myth that children need to be vaccinated to be healthy and drugged to become compliant with outdated ideas and rules for learning. As a result, children have more chronic illness, learning disabilities, and emotional problems than ever before.
I believe that all of this can be changed at a grass-roots level – the only way that things ever change. All parents want the best for their children and through informed choice and empowerment, parents can turn the tide of chronic disease and dysfunction and create a healthy, happy environment for their children. This in turn will also make a huge impact on the health and well-being of our planet. And this is what Healthy Child is all about.
My Personal Story
As a teen-ager in the 70s, I was on antibiotics for 7 years straight for severe acne, due to the advice and prescribing of several “well-meaning” dermatologists. The long-term use of antibiotics, plus stressful life situations, drastically compromised my health for years later. I had many years of chronic yeast, bladder, and strep infections, chronic insomnia, chronic pain, and an arsenal of prescription drugs to manage it all. I was malnourished, stressed out, and depleted throughout my 20s. I was deeply entrenched in a stressful corporate job that I considered meaningless.
Health, healing and wellness became my passion as I turned 30. I began to research and study everything I could find on how to get well. I learned about herbs and nutrition, chiropractic, Chinese medicine, naturopathic medicine, and many different forms of bodywork. Most importantly, I delved into my own spiritual and emotional healing and faced the unresolved issues from my past and present. I decided to leave the stress of the corporate world behind me, and became a licensed massage therapist, herbalist, rebirther, and energy healer. Since then, I’ve been as passionate about helping others in their healing process as I am with my own.
With the birth of my daughter, I began to research childhood vaccinations, children’s nutrition, environmental toxins, and what it takes to keep a child healthy and emotionally secure. I practiced many aspects of attachment parenting, breastfed my daughter for 4 years, refused vaccinations, provided an organic, whole foods diet, and learned everything I could about treating childhood ailments.
My daughter is now 15 and has always been amazingly healthy. I have to say I haven’t had much “hands on” experience with using the knowledge I gained in treating children’s illnesses since my daughter has never had anything that needed treatment. She’s never had an antibiotic or any other type of medication. Throughout her young life, she’s occasionally had high fevers or a stuffy nose that lasted a day or two. No major infections, or anything remotely serious.
I allowed her immune system to develop on its own. Knowing that exposure to germs helps to develop immunity, I let her play with sick kids and play outdoors in the rain and mud. She has been exposed to chicken pox 5 times that I know of, and I think she may have been exposed to pertussis (whooping cough) as a toddler. She’s never had a so-called “vaccine-preventable disease”, not even a flu virus.
I often wonder if she would be this healthy if she had been vaccinated or not breastfed long-term. Or perhaps she just came to this life with a strong constitution and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. This is one question that will never have a definitive answer. But I can say with deep conviction that I’ve never regretted these choices. I believe that not vaccinating and long-term breastfeeding were the best of all the decisions I made. I know I made tons of mistakes in parenting (and still do), but when I look back at what I did do right, these two things stand out.
I want to provide you with as much information as possible so you can make informed decisions for your children. I formed Healthy Child’s advisory board, comprised of qualified doctors and other highly competent and knowledgeable health professionals and environmental scientists, to advise and contribute in this endeavor.
In 2002 I wrote my first book, Super Healthy Kids: Strengthening Your Child’s Resistance to Disease, available as an e-book exclusively through Healthy Child.
In 2004, along with a group of holistic pediatricians and practitioners, I started the Holistic Pediatric Association, a non-profit organization for doctors and parents. I became the first executive director of this organization. Though I am not directly involved in this organization anymore, I’m happy to say it is thriving, and I continue to work with doctors and teachers to provide holistic pediatric continuing education seminars to pediatricians and child health practitioners. The pediatric seminars are very important to me since I believe it’s vitally important for pediatric medicine to shift into a more holistic, natural way to treat children.
About 10 years ago, I learned about mattress wrapping and the crib death prevention campaign in New Zealand. I began to look further into the research of Dr. James Sprott and others regarding the theory of toxic mattresses causing crib death. I’ve been in contact with Jim Sprott ever since, along with other environmental scientists, and I continue my research into the toxicity of baby mattresses. This has led me to search for healthy and safe mattresses and bedding for babies and children in the U.S. Since mattress exposure is a long-term and up-close major toxic exposure, I have made this a priority and definitely see that parents need to have good information in order to make decisions. Safe, healthy mattresses also need to be accessible and affordable to parents.
Several years ago I began retailing the Naturepedic baby and children’s mattresses on Healthy Child as well as providing as much information as possible. Since then, I have researched and added many other safe and healthy babies’ and children’s products, along with adult mattresses for co-sleeping families. Last year, I teamed up with Valerie Bettencourt, another work at home mom, and together we are growing Healthy Child into a healthy, sustainable business.