A new study seems to show that Amish children are “remarkably immune” to both allergies and asthma. Â Researchers compared a group of Indiana Amish children to Swiss children from both farm and non-farm environments. Swiss farm kids were over 3 times as likely to show a predisposition to allergies than Amish children, while Swiss non-farm children were over 6 times as likely. The Amish asthma…
Amish people can seem a little health-obsessed. At least that’s the impression you get when perusing Amish publications, filled as they often are with advertisements for a wide range of health-enhancing products. Â Many Amish purchase piles of vitamins and supplements via local dealers and mail order. You can also point to the organic food movement, which has spawned Amish evangelists who believe in the health…
You may be aware of the Clinic for Special Children in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, which treats children suffering from rare genetic illnesses, primarily within the Amish and Mennonite populations. The clinic was founded by Dr. Holmes Morton, a West Virginia native, in 1989. Each year the Lancaster community puts on an auction to benefit the clinic, which operates with much support from the Plain contingent. Certain…
Amish women have their babies in one of three places – at home, in the hospital, or at birthing centers. Some Amish prefer the at-home or birthing center options for reasons of cost and comfort. Midwives working in the community are both Amish and non-Amish, and may be licensed or unlicensed. Â Midwife-assisted birth is another in the list of issues involving Amish which have garnered…
Last week on the Amish quilt shop post I mentioned I picked up a copy of Plain and Happy Living: Amish Recipes and Remedies. Â This is a book written by the quilt shop owner’s aunt. Â She noted that it isn’t common for an Amish woman to publish something like that (and even less so 20 years ago, when the book first came out). Since the…
I remember the first time I got a sense that Amish might approach medicine a bit differently than the rest of us. Â I was selling books in Indiana. Â An Amish woman whom I met at the door casually mentioned that her children were battling whooping cough. Â “You’ve had your shots, right?” Â she asked. Â “Yes…I think?” Â One of the hazards of the job, I suppose. Well,…
Does the stork make home deliveries? Â For many Amish families, the answer is yes. Birth at home, or in Amish-oriented birthing centers, is preferred for a few reasons. Â They include cost, comfort, and closeness to family. Â Midwives, some licensed, and others not, often handle deliveries in lieu of a doctor. Midwives may be non-Amish, or in some cases come from within the Amish community. Â In…
The Amish potential-exemption-from-health-insurance-requirement story has shot around the net and become something of a hot sub-story to the health care issue. Frankly I thought it would get some attention but the amount of media coverage surprised me a bit. A scan of commentary reveals some upset at what’s been called a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card for the Amish (and, presumably other religious groups who meet the criteria),…
The qualities of being a closed population, as well as good genealogical records, make the Amish an attractive group for genetic and health-related studies. In a recently-reported Ohio State study, researchers theorized about higher rates of cancer, but found the opposite. They discovered that Amish in Holmes County, Ohio exhibit cancer rates only 56% of the national average. The researchers explain that low cancer rates…
People often assume that the Amish, whom we think of as a people ‘in tune with nature’ and ‘close to the earth’ (which to some degree may be true, whatever those phrases actually mean) are strictly all-natural when it comes to the food they raise. In fact, on most Amish farms pesticides are put to use. Organic farming is something that is catching on in…