What Do Postpartum Parents Need To Know About Herbal Safety?
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Kaely Harrod 0:00
As we continue down this postpartum journey together, today's question that we're diving into is what do postpartum parents need to know about herbal safety? Now, I am not an herbalist and so today's episode and question are going to be answered by a special guest. Her name is Kay'aleya Hunnybee. She is an herbalist and an integrative health educator that specializes in menstrual hormonal, sexual and reproductive health. She has so many other lovely layers of wisdom. And so I am very excited for you to hear her answer to this question. And look in the show notes for information about connecting with her on Instagram reading the resources that she mentioned in the show notes and also check out her podcast which is called the herbal womb wisdom podcast. So all of that is linked in the show notes. Enjoy her beautiful wisdom as she answers this question today. Welcome to Doula Tips and Tits, the podcast where I answer one question about pregnancy postpartum or lactation. This is a space where it's safe to have questions and we're gonna give you real answers. We're not going to beat around the bush or give you what we want you to know we're going to answer in an evidence based way. I'm Kaely Harrod and experienced doula mama three lactation counselor and a childbirth educator. I started this work in part because of my own lack of answers in my journey of pregnancy and birth. And I'm on a mission for families to be well informed and well supported through this time. This is a space where you will learn about questions that you didn't even know that you should be asking and have answers to ones that you're already asking. The whole purpose here is for you to feel a bit more educated and informed and competent in this journey that often feels very new and a little bit disconcerting. If you have not already I would love for you to subscribe to this podcast so that you get updates when there are new episodes. or head to our website Herat doula services.com to subscribe to our email updates so that you get notifications when we have a new episode. Episode out. Thank you for joining us today.
Unknown Speaker 2:29
Hello Hello beautiful doula tips and tits people. This is Kay'aleya Hunnybee I am a clinical herbalist and an integrative health educator focused on menstrual hormonal and sexual health. And I have a history I was a doula for years and a student midwife. So I have a lot of experience with and love for the childbearing years as well. And Kaylee asked me to come on and talk today about herbal safety in the postpartum time. So I'm excited to be here. I'm also the host of the herbal womb wisdom podcast, which you should go check out if you're interested. I cover topics ranging from everything like Hormonal Health, just basic herbalism understanding specific herbs at a deeper level, herbal postpartum care, vaginal infections, tracking your cycle naturally, deep wisdom and power that we hold in our wombs, I mean really just connecting with our bodies and learning to read the signs that our bodies are sharing with us and to work with the earth to support us. So very happy to be here today very grateful and honored that I was invited to share and looking forward to this. Now I will say that Kaely asked me to be more bite sized, as in make this a shorter episode. And that is not something that I am typically very good at. So here I go, I will be trying to do so in a way that is easy and accessible and gets the information that you need. And I also am being myself. So topic for the day, as I mentioned is herbal safety in the postpartum period. And let's just consider that for a minute. I don't know if you're somebody who has worked with herbs I don't know if you're a doula or if you are a pregnant mama or parent or if you are postpartum and you're just really curious or anything in between. But if you're a person in the world of Holistic Health at all, you probably do work with some herbs even if you don't think that you do I mean you might for instance drink cacao or or you might have chamomile tea sometimes or you might have peppermint tea sometimes or you might have a digest ease tea or you might go to the grocery store even and just go and check out you know maybe turmeric ginger tea is doesn't become a lot more popular in the past few years or just some of those basic tea You find like on almost every shelf of every grocery store. So you're probably using herbs even if you don't think that you are. Or maybe you're somebody who's already kind of skilled and in already incorporating herbs into your life in a variety of ways. But today, I really want to just talk about what do we consider when we are thinking about bringing herbs into the postpartum time. I mean, one thing is that we're really talking about when people are breast or chest beating in the lactation time, right? When we're thinking about safety, because if somebody is not breastfeeding, or chest feeding, then we're not as concerned about safety. Of course, we want that person to be safe. But more so when we're thinking about safety, we're thinking about is this safe, when we are also producing milk that is then going to be taken in by our baby. And that's the main thing we're considering right is like, are these herbs is are there, constituents that is like parts of the plants that are active, or their constituents in these plants, if we take them in, that will be in some way harmful or affecting to our babe, like, you've probably heard that, for instance, caffeine, you know, with, whether it's coffee, or it's tea, or different things like that can actually be transferred to your baby. And so you know, there are there are a lot of recommendations out there. I know many, many, many breasts and chest beating parents who do drink at least a cup of coffee a day and feel okay with that. And I know a lot of people who just don't, you know, and so that's one of the things that I really want to speak about today is that we are all going to make our own decisions that you are your own sovereign being. And you are also an individual and your body is unique. And so you have to listen to what is true for you, and not just see like, oh, this says it's safe, or this says it's not safe. And so I really think it's important for you to tune in to what's true and right for you, and do some deep listening and some observing and just watch how things are affecting your baby as well. And I also personally tend to err on the side of caution in the childbearing years. I am an herbalist, I have a lot of experience with plants. I also studied Midwifery, I have relationships with childbearing years, I think it's really important for us, especially in this time, when there are there is like a sensitive being that you could be impacting, to be a little bit more cautious. So I do err on the side of caution. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't want to incorporate herbs into the postpartum experience. There's a couple of things that I want to speak to in general, it's not like our bodies need herbs, right. Like, our bodies know how to birth babes. They know how to recover from birthing babes, like our bodies are miraculous, they are able to heal themselves, right? However, many, many, many of us in the modern world and even throughout history, are very depleted. Along the way, whether that's even pre pregnancy, we may deplete be depleted. And then pregnancy itself, we're really offering like tons of minerals and nutrients, and just support to our babes. And that's like a very stressful experience on our body. And then in the postpartum period, especially if we are breast or chest feeding, we're also producing this milk. And this milk is just like really ticket taking ton of calories, and it's taking lots of nutrients from us. So and we may have experienced complications along the way, we may have had, we may have things come up postpartum that we need support with. So there's a lot of reasons that adding in nutritive herbs or herbs to support us specifically with what's going on, we might want to however, you know, it's not like our bodies actually need herbs. It's not like we're in an herb deficiency. traditional cultures, though, around the world have all had nourishing postpartum rituals, and herbs and foods that are especially favored and this time, and that there's a reason for that, right? There's like this depletion that we've experienced. And so it's all about what I like to call convalescence. In the postpartum period, no, convalescence is a real lost art, from my perspective, but it is something that our every single ancestor that we had understood and knew and actually did a lot more to encourage in our bodies kind of lessons is that period of time after we're sick or after we go through a major transformation or transition in our lives, that we have a gradual coming back into health. It's like a gentle recovery. And if you're familiar with kind of the concept of deep home postpartum care or any of the higher Vedic postpartum care, rituals and traditions that are out there, you'll probably be familiar with these concepts. Right? So to me one of the reasons for thinking about why we're working with herbs in the postpartum period, there's a few different reasons right. Number one would be to support ourselves in that convalescence, it would be to encourage the repletion of minerals and nutrients store offers maybe working with herbs like nourishing infusions, nettles, Oatstraw, red raspberry leaf, it might be managing the stress response which all of us are kind of going through that kind of calming of stress but also evening out so relaxing nerves, things that are safe in lactation like chamomile, lavender, lemon balm or Linden Linden is amazing. If you don't know Linden, it's like one of my favorites, or like supporting mood, wellness and stability. You know, it can be very, very common for there to be sort of like mood swings that happen and even baby blues where you might be working with herbs like mother Ward, or even Ashwagandha or Hawthorne. And then there's encouraging the healing process, right. So whether that's internally healing with herbs like Gotu Kola for tissue healing internally or topically, like the perineum, for instance, with calendula, or rose or plantain, and also encouraging rest and sleep, right with some herbs, like I've already mentioned, those calming nerving herbs that are also safe in lactation, like lavender and chamomile and Linden and ashwagandha, etc.
Kaely Harrod 11:07
We'll be right back after this message from our sponsor. The birth prep blueprint course is a guide from pregnancy to postpartum, giving you the confidence to walk through this journey. However it might play out. It is pre recorded on demand content. So you do not have to fit your busy schedule around a class or meeting time, you can go back and revisit the lessons as much as you need to. And you can watch or listen to them on your own time. This curriculum has left many families feeling confident in their decisions, knowing what questions to ask their providers, and knowing when they should be concerned in all of these periods. One of the biggest parts of this work in terms of preparing families and walking through this journey is knowing that you have a guide to rely on. And that's exactly what this class is. Students have told me they felt like I was walking them along a path to know what to watch for and what to not be worried about. Because you are here as a listener, you get the opportunity to have a 10% off discount on this class, that code is podcast, it is in the show notes as well along with the link to use to check out for the class, I do really recommend that you go give it a look. Because it is going to make you feel more prepared calm and confident for your birthing experience. Now back to your show.
Unknown Speaker 12:34
So that's kind of one of the reasons that we might be working with herbs postpartum, that would be this deep nourishment, this recovery that pretty much everyone could be supported by and most of the all those herbs are really gentle and see safe for most people. I mean, of course you want to check in if you're on any meds for sure, you always want to check in and see if anything might be interacting. Now urban drug interactions are much, much, much more rare than drug drug interactions, however, they can still happen. So I always want you to check in with your care provider, whether that's a midwife, or a doctor of any kind, to make sure that what you're taking a safe, but all of those herbs that I mentioned are fairly gentle, they are just restorative and supportive for what I consider to be that convalescence period that pretty much everyone goes through. beyond that. We want to consider you know different symptoms that might come up that might be more specific, that might be more of a condition that you might want to actually work with somebody to support or look into a resource where you can find a specific formulation that might be helpful for you and that you know is safe, right and so that that could be something like replenishing a body after a hemorrhage or nipple cracking or soreness or postpartum depression even or milk supply issues or mastitis etc. You know, these are specific things. And if you're interested actually, in any of this, these herbal ways to approach any of these, feel free to check out I have a podcast episode. That's an interview with an herbalist who specializes in this Liz Philbrick. And you can find that at herbal wuwm.com/episode 25 Herbal room.com/episode 25. It's an entire episode all about herbal postpartum care, it's pretty amazing. It's basically like a class. So I don't actually have a lot of time to speak specifically about herbs for these conditions beyond what I've already shared, since we're really talking about safety here and how to figure out like what's safe and what's not. I just wanted to mention this concept of like more nourishing and nutritive herbs for the recovery period that are gentle herbs that you can find in you know, even pregnancy blends a lot of pregnancy blends, you can just continue into the postpartum period. And typically things that are safe in pregnancy are also safe postpartum for lactation. But there may be exceptions to that. So always check in to make sure that what you're doing digging is going to be safe in the lactation period. Now I just want to be real that Google is not the best place to search to figure out if things are safe. There's conflicting opinions all over the place, and a lot of things saying to stay away from herbs because of people have lack of knowledge about it, right? So where can you find information you can trust? And how do you even tell if things are safe or not? How do you decide for yourself? Like what feels good? Well, I have a few suggestions. My first suggestion was would be to get a couple of references that you can look back to and two books that I recommend for the postpartum period verbally are the nursing mothers herbal by Sheila Humphrey, and natural health after birth by Aviva ROM. So have you ever ROM has been a very significant teacher for me, she is an herbalist who was a midwife for like 20 or 30 years and now as a medical doctor, I really just feel like she has such evidence base in her perspectives and her writings, she's really a trusted person. And the nursing mothers herbal is just very specific to the lactation period and so that it's fully postpartum herbalism I do want to put the little caution out that not all herbalists are the same. There actually aren't a ton of herbalists who are really knowledgeable about the childbearing years. And there are some books out there that I wouldn't personally trust that don't have good information in them. So if you are curious about specific books, check in and like maybe ask a clinical herbalist, I mean, feel free to get in touch with me on Instagram, for instance, which is I'm at herbal womb wisdom, you can ask me what I think about a reference and I'm happy to share my thoughts on it. I know I'm very connected to the herbal community, I do have a bit of a sciency background. But I really believe in tradition to I do believe that when we think about and learn about herbs that have been safe in the postpartum period for hundreds or 1000s of years, there's a lot to say on that, right, we don't have the science to tell us that something is safe on every single herb. But we do have a lot of science that does tell us that certain things are safe. So I like to combine the two that's my background, just to give you a heads up on that. If you're a super nerd, you can check out or maybe a practitioner, you can check out the book botanical medicine for women's health by Aviva rom but that is like a textbook. And you can also if you're a real research nerd, and you know, get into PubMed, for instance, you can totally research herbs and safety concerns for yourself. And if you're a health care provider, and you have access the natural medicines database is a place where you can often find research that's compiled on safety fairly well. But honestly, I really feel like if you check out natural health after birth, or if you check out the nursing mothers herbal those are sources that you can trust. And then feel free to write me and ask me what I think on other resources, I'm really happy to share. That's the mean like this kind of concept of safety and the childbearing years is really important to me, I feel like there's not enough information out there about it. And it's something that I have a special interest in. But honestly, like I was saying before, what I like to do is just stick to the tried and true when I can, such as you might find in these books, but also just That's all that's needed really like we typically don't need like really hard hitting herbs are herbs that are have a lot of strong constituents that are really impactful for us. You know, we don't need to be working with those herbs in the postpartum period, because our bodies are in this really sensitive receptive state anyway, so we're often like really supported by some of these more gentle nutritive herbs. Now, if there's something specific or a more significant condition that arises, I would either reach out to a clinical herbalist who has specialized training in reproductive health, which as I said before, there really honestly aren't that many of us. So make sure that you're reaching out to somebody who actually has experience with this. It could be a midwife who has experience with herbs to midwives or clinical herbalist specializing in reproductive health and especially the postpartum period, who really have knowledge about this because things can feel really complicated or confusing. And you might have questions. So if you want that absolutely reach out to somebody who can look into this for you. And if you want to figure it out on your own, I really recommend considering risk versus benefit. And obviously, you want the benefit to outweigh the risk and ideally you want to avoid risk because you are also nurturing this baby, right? And if you don't know what's gonna happen, if you take something in and you know, the baby ingests it, then it's just something that we typically want to avoid, I would highly recommend avoiding that. But this is also especially important if you're considering adding in any meds. If you have specific conditions that are coming up that are pretty severe that are really needing support, I would absolutely look at risk versus benefit. Oftentimes, herbs are in a safer category than pharmaceutical goals but not always. So definitely look into various options for yourself and find what is what is best for you and your baby and your family and absolutely consult somebody who is an expert in this and or who can at least look up the research in a way where they can really understand it. I think that that's important. That said, I highly recommend checking out those books that I mentioned before the nursing mothers herbal by Sheila Humphrey and natural health after birth by Aviva rom those are trusted resources. And absolutely feel free to reach out at herbal womb wisdom to ask me about other references or what I think on things or I'm happy to look certain herbs up you know, I actually do herbal spotlights every so often every couple months on my podcast, I do an herbal spotlight. And I will always mention whether that is safe in pregnancy or postpartum and or if it's actually beneficial in that time. So I already have one on mother wart I have on a nettles, I have one on dandelion, all of those are safe in the postpartum period. And you can check those out. They're all beneficial in that time. So between getting to know the herbs in a deeper way on things like these herbal spotlights or checking out those references that I mentioned, you should be good, you should be pretty good. And I mean, the point is, don't necessarily be afraid of working with herbs, but work with herbs that are tried and true. Work with herbs that you can trust that are especially herbs that are gentler, that are really beneficial that are known to be beneficial that had been worked with for hundreds or 1000s of years and avoid the ones that have been contraindicated throughout history. That's the basics. I hope this has been helpful for you. It's been a real joy and pleasure to be here with you and I look forward to hopefully connecting with you again at some point.
Kaely Harrod 21:46
I am so grateful for Kay'aleya taking the time to answer that question for us. If you can't already tell she is clearly a wealth of knowledge. Please take a minute to follow her on social media, check out her work on Instagram. She has some fantastic free guides. And go ahead and subscribe to her podcast because that is another wonderful wealth of knowledge to add to your list of things. We're still going down this path of postpartum episodes for a few more episodes before we get to the end of the year. So stay tuned on what's coming next. This has been Kaely daily doula Tips and Tits. I'm so glad that you were here joining us today. I am not your medical provider. And so all of this information is intended to be educational and entertainment. Please use it as such. And if you have questions about your own medical health, or need recommendations from your own provider, please do speak to them. This is not intended to replace them in any way. We are so happy that you are here joining us in this walkthrough, pregnancy postpartum and lactation. Please take a second to like and subscribe, leave a positive review. That is how other families get to hear about us and get to learn from all the answers that we have here on this podcast. As always, I would really love to connect with you. I love answering questions. I know that you know that because you are here, but I would love to hear what your questions are. So if I have not yet answered them on the podcast, I would love to add them to the list of questions to be answered. please do reach out to me on Instagram or via email Kaely at Herat, doula services.com so that I can answer whatever question you have, and so that I can hear the feedback that you have about the podcast. Until we meet again, I wish you well informed consent filled birth and postpartum experiences
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Herbs have been incorporated into pregnancy, labor and postpartum for all of human history. Today we are joined by a beautiful human, Kay'aleya Hunnybee, who is an herbalist and integrative health educator that focuses on perinatal and postpartum timeframes. She joins us today to talk about herbal safety and use in the postpartum period. Herbs carry so many diverse benefits and can be incorporated in a way that feels right for your family.
This episode is an absolute goldmine of information. You may want to take notes! Be sure to follow the links to Kay’aleya’s podcast and resources as well.
GUEST SPEAKER:
Kay’aleya is an herbalist and integrative health educator specializing in menstrual, hormonal, sexual and reproductive health. She holds a Masters of Science degree in Therapeutic Herbalism from the Maryland University of Integrative Health, a certification as a Women's Herbal Educator with Aviva Romm, MD, and is currently pursuing certification as a Women's Health Coach with a focus on nutrition through the Integrative Women's Health Institute.
As a trained yoga teacher and an experienced massage therapist with a background as a doula and student midwife, she brings a uniquely integrative lens to her work as an herbalist. She draws on her diverse tapestry of experience to share truly integrative approaches to everything from menstrual cycle support, to breast/chest health, to postpartum care, to navigating the menopausal transition and beyond. She teaches through her weekly podcast, Herbal Womb Wisdom, and her forthcoming online courses, where you can experience her practice of embodied herbalism first-hand.
Her greatest wish is for others to know the healing potential and kinship with the earth and the plants like she does.
RESOURCES
CONNECT With Kay’aleya:
Instagram: @herbalwombwisdom
Links mentioned:
Early postpartum herbal care with Liz Philbrick: https://www.herbalwomb.com/episode25
Motherwort herbal spotlight: https://www.herbalwomb.com/episode32
Nettles herbal spotlight: https://www.herbalwomb.com/episode22
Dandelion herbal spotlight: https://www.herbalwomb.com/episode11
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CONNECT with Kaely on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/Harroddoula/
This podcast is hosted by the Birth Prep Blueprint - comprehensive Childbirth Education for expectant parents to feel calm, prepared and confident about labor and birth. Podcast listeners (that’s YOU!) get 10% off! Use the link below and coupon code PODCAST
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Kaely Daily is produced by Kaely Harrod of Harrod Doula Services
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Music by Madirfan: Hidden Place on Pixabay
