Why Does My Child’s Lips Keep Cracking and the Corners of the Mouth Keep Splitting? Doctor Luo Dalun: It’s Usually Food Stagnation — Clear It First, Then Drink the Three-Bean and Smoked Plum Sugar Soup

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Hello, parents. Today we continue looking at children’s tongue photos. The first message we received says: the child’s lips are cracked, one corner of the mouth always stays red, and the corners keep splitting over and over — no matter what, it just won’t get better.

Opening: a parent says the corners of the child’s mouth keep splitting, again and again

When winter arrives, many parents find that their child’s lips start causing trouble. So today Doctor Luo is again looking at a child’s tongue picture with everyone — the first message he received says: the child’s lips are dry and cracked, one corner of the mouth always stays red, and the corners of the mouth split again and again, no matter what they try.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Many children have this problem. So what is going on? Let’s look at the child’s tongue photo.

First, the tongue: the coating covers the whole tongue, and the middle is especially thick

Doctor Luo’s first step is always to look at the tongue. When the photo is enlarged, the problem is right there.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Look — this child’s lips really are very dry and cracked. Now what about the tongue? Look at the coating — it covers the entire tongue. What does that mean? It means this child’s dampness is a little heavy. But what about the MIDDLE of the coating? It’s rather thick — what does that mean? You can all read it now, right? A thick middle coating means this child has food stagnation (ji shi).

One signal of dampness, one signal of stagnation — appearing at the same time, the child’s spleen-stomach state is already written on the tongue.

The spleen opens into the mouth and shows its bloom on the lips: the lips are the “mirror” of the spleen and stomach

Why, when the lips are cracked, do you look at the tongue and the spleen and stomach? Doctor Luo explains the reasoning clearly.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This child’s tongue can really reflect the state of a child’s spleen and stomach. Especially — Chinese medicine holds that the spleen opens into the mouth and shows its bloom on the lips (pi kai qiao yu kou, qi hua yu chun). What does that mean? It means that problems of the spleen and stomach often show up in the mouth — and especially where? On the lips. So when you see his lip problem, what kind of problem is it really? It’s really a problem of his own spleen and stomach.

The No. 1 spleen-stomach problem in children: food stagnation — seven out of ten have it

So what is the most common spleen-stomach problem in children? Doctor Luo had just finished sorting through tongue photos sent in by parents the day before, and he was deeply struck.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: What is the main spleen-stomach problem in children? It’s food stagnation (ji shi). Yesterday I roughly sorted through all the tongue photos you parents sent me. Oh my — I found so many. I’ll be honest with you: I think 70% of children have food stagnation. Among the children whose problems you reported, most have food stagnation.

That proportion alone makes your heart clench. Where does food stagnation come from?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: I have always believed that food stagnation is a very serious problem in children. The way we feed children today may be a little excessive, and sometimes it’s unreasonable — and that is what causes food stagnation.

Stagnation looks like a small matter, but it stirs up no small amount of trouble

Some parents think: food stagnation is just eating too much — why so alarmed? Doctor Luo says it’s not that simple.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Food stagnation looks like no big deal, like nothing serious. But the disharmony it causes is actually very common. So parents must learn to recognize food stagnation. How? Just look at the tongue coating — one look, and: oh, the middle is thick, right? What do you do when the coating is thick? Dissolve the stagnation.

Step one: keep the child from licking the lips

Children with cracked lips all share a little habit: when the lips feel dry and uncomfortable, they keep licking them. Doctor Luo says this habit has to be controlled first.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: For cracked lips, remember this: don’t let the child keep licking the lips. Because when they’re dry and uncomfortable, the child keeps licking — try to stop it as much as you can. The more you lick, the drier they get; the more you lick, the more they crack. That’s the experience — remember it.

Step two: lard on the lips — moistens dryness and resolves toxins

Once the mouth is managed, you still need to apply something on the outside. What Doctor Luo recommends is something many parents would never expect — lard.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: What to apply externally? Something on the lips. What? Let me tell you — you probably wouldn’t guess: lard. What kind of lard? Here’s how: buy some pork fat, put it in a pan and heat it to render the oil — in the Northeast we call it “hao you.” When all the oil comes out, throw away the cracklings, or put them in your cooking — they’re fragrant too; when we were kids, eating those cracklings was the most delicious thing in the world. Then put the oil in the fridge to chill; once chilled it becomes a white paste. Just apply that white paste to the child’s lips.

Why should lard be able to handle cracked lips?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Lard is actually very special in Chinese medicine. What does it do? It moistens dryness. What else? It also clears fire — that is, it resolves toxins. So when there are skin problems, sometimes we use lard on them. For example, with certain sores — say an elderly person has bedsores from lying in bed a long time — what to do? In general the simplest thing is to use this lard: apply the white lard, and it works quite well — it is sweet, cool, and detoxifying. And if you add a few herbs and render them into the oil together, that oil is even better. For a child, I think just applying a little lard is enough — it protects the lips and keeps them from cracking further.

Step three: Jiao San Xian with stir-fried ji nei jin — thin the tongue coating first

External application takes care of the surface; internally, the food stagnation still has to be cleared. Doctor Luo offers a simple little formula.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: First and second, at the same time — what else should you do? Give the child some Jiao San Xian (charred hawthorn berry, charred medicated leaven, and charred barley sprout) together with stir-fried ji nei jin (dried chicken gizzard lining). For a child like this, 6 grams is usually enough — 6 g of each. Jiao San Xian is three herbs, right? Paired with the stir-fried ji nei jin, that’s four herbs at 6 g each. Decoct them in water and drink for two days to thin the tongue coating down.

Step four: the Three-Bean and Smoked Plum Sugar Soup — drink it for a week and the lips turn moist

Once the coating has thinned, it’s time to “nourish.” What Doctor Luo brings out is a bowl of sweet-and-sour drink.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: After the coating is thinned, what do you drink? Everyone, drink the Three-Bean and Smoked Plum Sugar Soup (san dou wu mei bai tang). Which three beans? Grab one handful of black soybeans, one handful of mung beans — the mung beans clear fire; the black soybeans tonify the kidneys; and one handful of yellow soybeans — those tonify the spleen. You see, in the end the whole adjustment comes back to the spleen and stomach; tonifying the kidneys is also for the sake of the spleen and stomach. And the mung beans clear fire — why is there fire here? Look, the tip of the tongue and the edges are still red, and that is why the corners of the mouth crack and split. Put the three handfuls of beans in water, add a few smoked plums (wu mei) — usually three to five, bought from a pharmacy — then add two spoons of sugar, and simmer everything together for more than two hours. When it’s done, treat it as a beverage. It’s like sweet red-bean soup — very sweet, sweet and sour. I think it’s delicious; I’ve made it myself, and I think it’s very good.

This soup is made precisely for children with “splitting at the corners of the mouth and fire.”

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This Smoked Plum Sugar Soup, combined with the Three-Bean Drink, is for treating cracked mouth corners with a bit of fire — and the effect is excellent. So you can give it a try. Drink it for about a week, and see whether things improve.

The core in one sentence: clear the food stagnation first, then follow the regimen — the results are better

All the methods have been laid out. At the end, Doctor Luo stresses the order again — get the order wrong and the effect suffers.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: What’s the core? The core is: first offload and clear the food stagnation — get rid of the stagnation — and then follow this regimen; the effect is better that way. All right? These methods are all food-based remedies, and I recommend them for children like this. Other parents, if your child has problems at the corners of the mouth, can use them too, all right?

Compiled from Doctor Luo Dalun’s children’s tongue-diagnosis public education series.