Herbs and Natural Remedies in Childbirth Part 1
Disclaimer: The following pieces of information have been formulated by a CPM (certified professional midwife) who’s written a book with extensive research called, The Ministry of Midwifery. Please discuss any and all considerations of herbs and natural remedies with a trusted provider.
Ok Let’s get into herbs! When I first started down my journey of birth education, herbs were like, wild to me. Literally. I would never have ever considered taking herbs for many reasons.
For one, they weren’t regulated by doctors.
Two, how did I know how they would effect me or my kids?
Three, what about unknown side effects?!
The more I confronted and challenged these hesitations and explored what I like the call, “the flip side”, it became more and more clear to me, how I trusted pharmaceutical medications, lab made medications with massive amounts of side effects, but not plants that grew from the ground. Furthermore, pharmaceuticals are partially derived from plants that serve…you guessed it, medicinal purposes! Ay. The brainwashing. Anyway. The flip side also showed me and reminded me that medicine women, the wise women before our time were the providers of their communities. Gosh I love this so much They had a pulse on the needs of their communities and delivering the babies in the neighborhood and had amazing success rates with treating the health of their communities.
Herbs used in history and now with community birth providers:
Angelica Root
Black Cohosh
Blue Cohosh
Black Haw root bark
Chamomile
Comfrey leaf
Cramp bark
Echinacea
Evening Primrose Oil
False Unicorn
Have you heard of any of these?
As I step into my journey of midwifery and serving families, I will begin to go further into the study of herbal support through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum as it relates to access for my clients. Herbs are far more accessible than pharmaceuticals for many people in many communities and it’s important to explore the use safely and effectively. I will go through the logistics of each of these that I’ve listed on part 2 so that you can see what the indications for use are. Save this and make sure you have giananataliav.com bookmarked to come back and check!
XO, Gi