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alternative-health

What Herbs Can I Take for Anxiety While Breastfeeding

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English: catnip , Nepeta cataria ;leaf
English: catnip , Nepeta cataria ;leaf (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

<< Does anyone routinely use any calming herbs often enough to know if they  are safe for nursing mothers?  I was thinking of Valerian, hops and  passionflower for my sister’s second child (the oldest still wakes during the night)…>>

The time after giving birth is normally somewhat anxiety producing.  A new mother who typically had interrupted sleep follows what might be the most physically challenging event of her life with insufficient sleep and the overwhelming  responsibility of a helpless new baby (particularly if the baby has colic. )

Catnip might work as well as valerian and is definitely fine for the baby.  In fact you can give it to the baby directly.  Valerian is listed as safe during lactation, but make sure she gets fresh root tincture rather than dried capsules because the dried herb can be stimulating instead of sedative and calming. I prefer teas to tinctures for breastfeeding moms because fluid keeps up the milk supply, which makes catnip, which can be dried, preferable.

Mints are fine, fennel is good for the milk, fenugreek is too but can make you fertile sooner, astragalus is good if you need an immune booster.  Garlic is good although some babies don’t like the way it makes the milk taste- but others adore it.  Oat straw is a nourishing nervine.  Carrot juice will help, especially if anxiety makes your milk supplies lag.

A new mother can experience anxiety if she does not know what herbs are safe for other conditions she may experience during the breastfeeding period.  Other herbs listed as safe during lactation are:

Adaptogens:  borage flower, nettles

Analgesics: valerian root, passionflower, lavender

Alteratives:  nettles, red clover, alfalfa

Antidepressants:  vervain leaf, melissa, lavender, borage, lemon verbena, vitex if due to hormonal imbalance postpartum (also dong quai, red clover)

Antiemetics:  black horehound, raspberry leaf, melissa (lemon balm), chamomile, ginger

Antimicrobials: garlic, corn silk, echinacea, shitake mushrooms, thyme (go easy)

Antispasmodics: cramp bark, valerian root, chamomile

Astringents: yarrow, witch hazel, periwinkle

Bitters: chicory root, dandelion, chamomile, burdock

Carminatives:  peppermint, fennel, anise, dill, ginger

Demulcents: marshmallow, slippery elm (also can be fed to infants)

Diuretics:  dandelion (good for breast abscesses), corn silk

Galactogues: fennel, anise, nigella, milk thistle seed, vervain leaf

Hepatics: dandelion, lemon juice

Nervines: oatstraw and oats, catnip, St. Johnswort, melissa, skullcap

Relaxants: chamomile, skullcap, lemon balm

Tonics:  astragalus, dong quai (for blood), ginseng, eleuthero (Siberian ginseng)

Vulneraries: chamomile, plantain, St. Johnswort

First off I would see that she gets ton of liquids.  Catnip tea is especially good for calming and colic, and if the mother drinks it, her milk will reflect it.  A quart per day is not unreasonable.  Better yet, she could make an overnight infusion which contains 1/2 ounce oatstraw with heads (avena sativa) and 1/2 oz. catnip, put in a quart jar, pour on boiling water, cap and strain in the morning.  It is easy- she can boil the water while she is brushing her teeth and it will help protect her bones and build the child’s.  It is also a nutritive nervine.

Milk production is primarily related to the amount of liquid consumed, the suckling of the child which stimulates milk and stress.  If she has other children and a non-sleeper, she should be getting help during the day so she can nap whenever the baby does.  It is worth the money- and not just for milk production!

Milk production is normally cyclic and usually reflects the baby’s hunger patterns, which may change.  They seem to go on milk binges just before growth spurts and when teething- and the teething pain seems worse when the teeth are cutting through the internal gum layers, long before they emerge.  Probably not the issue now, but I know of two babies who were born with teeth, so you never know.  Having a bit extra breast milk is good in a pinch (and a caregiver can give it to the baby when the mother is exhausted and needs a nap or a break.)  Airplane trips, as an aside, are great times to pump extra milk because the air pressure makes it easier- so if she has any trips coming up she can bring a pump and cooler.  ????  Just make sure that the milk is NOT heated in a microwave because it kills off the antibodies, is hard to digest and the baby will not thrive.

When the baby is a bit older she can give it catnip tea as well, by bottle.  I’d wait until the second month, and make sure that it does not displace the milk consumption.  1/2 bottle per day under 6 months and a bottle after, in divided doses, as required.  The oatstraw/catnip infusion would be particularly good.

The mother can take fennel, fenugreek  or mint teas as well.  Mothers Milk tea by Traditional Medicinals is good.  She should watch her diet (broccoli, onions and other foods high in sulfur are common foods to cause colic but again depends in the baby.)

I would also encourage the mother to sleep with the baby when she feels anxious or overwhelmed.  The baby is more likely to sleep, less likely to awaken and  can learn to nurse while the mother sleeps.  (He’ll even learn to help himself after a few months.)  I firmly believe that it makes it much easier on the family if the parents take the baby to bed.  Everyone sleeps better, there are fewer SIDS deaths (unless she sleeps with him in a waterbed), the father gets to cuddle more than usual and the baby feels more secure.  They do outgrow it and the parents usually kick them out when they insist upon sleeping sideways.

If she hasn’t read them lately, the La Leche League has two excellent books “The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding” and “The Family Bed”.  The information is not just basic stuff, and bears re-reading if it has been a few years since we usually remember what applied to the first child if it was read then.  La Leche can give her advice and provide lactation counselors who do more than help make sure there is enough milk.

Note:  The list of safe herbs probably derives from one developed by herbalist Amanda McQuade.  I have been using and adapting it for years and am no longer certain of its provenance.
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breast-feeding, pregnancy, vitamin-d

Nursing Mothers, Infants and Vitamin D

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While I used to think otherwise, I firmly believe that nursing mothers should supplement both themselves and their babies with Vitamin D.  The exceptions to this are mothers who live south of Atlanta, who Breastfeedingtogether with their babies are out of doors without sunscreen between 11:00 am and 1:00pm and who don’t use soap when they wash (because it washes away the D2 oil involved in the process of making D3.)  We used to have government programs to encourage parents to take children out into the sun.   See this informative and entertaining video from UCSD.

In Finland, babies were routinely given cod liver oil providing 4500 iu of D (and modern cod liver oil is NOT recommended for it due to lower D/A ratios).  Then, since research showed that rickets could be  prevented at 400 iu, the recommended daily amount was lowered.  As a result, Type 1 Diabetes skyrocketed.  We have very good data showing that 90% of Type 1 Childhood Diabetes can be eliminated by Vitamin D supplementation.

Finland Diabetes and D chart
The link between Vitamin D and Type 2 diabetes in children is less supported but there is good evidence that it may also play a role.

Vitamin D deficiency may also play a role in some autism.  The blood levels of Vitamin D in autistics is generally low.

Vitamin D Council’s John Cannell, MD, (http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/ is convinced that vitamin D deficiency is linked to autism and that the autism “epidemic” started at the exact same time that the vitamin D deficiency epidemic started. As soon as we started limiting sun exposure and using sunscreens, the number of autism cases shot up.  Science Magazine published a similar article.  There are groups of Somali children in Sweden and Minnesota who are hugely overrepresented among autistics, with the only real difference between their lighter skinned peers is that their skin color prevents Vitamin D absorption.  It is correlation, but is compelling.

I have here a number of articles on Vitamin D and its health benefits.  While theoretical toxicity is a potential problem, it is hard to get high enough to be toxic.  And since 13,000  Finnish babies managed on 4500 iu, then we have good evidence that isn’t so high.

While it is very important that a pregnant or nursing mother have high D levels, it isn’t easy to do that from diet alone. Most of us drink less milk,  eat less liver or organ meat, don’t go out into the sun around noon without sunscreen and we wash the oils off of our skin that might be turned into the vitamin.  We are also heavier, which reduces Vitamin D.  Our foods used to have a lot more D:  cattle grazed in the sunlight foraging for wild plants, wild fish ate plankton instead of Purina fish meal, and pigs and chickens weren’t penned indoors.  The supplementation of Vitamin D from irradiated milk is insufficient to make up for the loss.  And your prenatal vitamins won’t have enough because the RDA is too low.

If your skin is dark, chances are that your D levels are low.  The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) found African Americans were low: just 3 percent of blacks sampled in 2004 were found to have the recommended levels compared with 12 percent  two decades ago.  If you don’t have it, you can’t pass it through your milk.  Breastfed infants have been taken away from nursing African American mothers on suspicion of abuse because they had hidden fractures from rickets and were not tested for them.  Since we are out of our ecological niche, we no longer have the natural sources of Vitamin D at our disposal and we probably need to supplement.

I would personally take 10,000 iu during pregnancy and lactation, more if I had conditions that reduce Vitamin D like dark skin, autoimmune disease, diabetes or obesity.  I would personally give my baby 2000 iu, and would massage in a D-supplemented skin oil (even if I had to add it in myself.)  We would both spend time in the noonday sun without sunscreen.  And just to be safe, I would ask for 25-hydroxy-D blood tests to make sure I was getting it high enough.

Research on D in Pregnancy and Lactation from the Vitamin D Council.