Transcript:
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Milk Minute Podcast. This is a special episode with just me Maureen here to talk to you today about some of my favorite herbs for lactation. But before I get into it, I’m going to thank a bunch of patrons because you guys are the real MVPs.
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Imagine a world. Where you seek lactation care and it’s easy and someone greets you at the door and they’re nice to you And they give you a hot cup of tea and let you sit on the couch and talk about all the issues Not just the breastfeeding issues. What a cozy fantasy. Is there anywhere that’s real? Oh, it’s real girl It’s real and I’ve been building it for quite a long time My business is called breastfeeding for busy moms and me and every member of my team are trained in our three major tenets Which is accessibility kindness If you want to book a consult with Heather or anyone else on her team, you should head over to breastfeedingforbusymoms.
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Just going to jump into it. And I kind of wanted to go over some of the herbs that I see more commonly used in galactagogue blends on the market that I think are worth trying. Especially if of course you’ve already met with a lactation professional, you have optimized your milk expression, whether that’s by how baby is feeding or using your pump, and you’ve kind of done all of the.
Like physical, physiological things that you can to optimize milk production. And you want to see if herbs can give you a little bit more of a boost. Now, when we’re thinking about galactagogues, it’s something that is going to be supporting normal functioning. And so a lot of these have many different purposes.
And as we know, lactation is really a complicated process, right? That involves. Things like us digesting our food and putting energy into our bloodstream and transferring nutrients from our bloodstream into our mammary glands. And the reality is with these galactagogues, some of them we do kind of know more specifically how they work.
And some of them we look at and we say, wow, people have used these for thousands of years for this purpose. And in study it works really well, or it works okay for some people, but there’s not a lot of harm in trying it. So let’s see what we can do. Now, I wanted to start off with an herb that I actually don’t like to eat, but I think it is a great galactic hug, and that is fennel.
Fennel root is something a lot of people use culinarily, it’s a very common ingredient, it’s something you’ll find in so many dishes. You know, galactagogue teas, but it is a very specific taste. It’s not something everybody actually likes in their mouth, but if you like fennel, it’s certainly worth a try.
We can also use the seeds as well. And that’s typically the part that we’re using in these tea blends rather than the root. The interesting thing about fennel is it is primarily a digestive herb, so we are looking at it for its anti-inflammatory, anti-spasmodic carminative, calmative, and digestive properties.
Now, it’s also really everywhere you can see it’s Materia Medica, you’re gonna see that it’s a galactagogue. But personally, I haven’t found any. you know, convincing like scientific papers that say exactly how that might work. However, there are a few studies that show that it can significantly improve people’s milk supply, and because it is like a very low risk herb it’s not something that is going to throw your body out of whack if you take a lot of it.
I, I think it’s definitely something that is worth trying. And, you know, I’ve certainly wondered if its galactagogue properties are related to its digestive properties. We know that it enhances digestion and assimilation of food. We know that it improves the digestion of fatty foods. And You know, I do wonder if it simply is allowing us to get more nutrients out of our food and into our bloodstream and making those more bioavailable for our milk.
I truly don’t know that. However, if we’re going to be using it regardless, we typically use it in one of three ways. We can do a tea, a tincture, or a capsule. If you guys have ever listened to me rant about this to Heather, you know that I don’t love capsules for herbs. I think it’s really easy to take too much.
And I think it’s also not the most effective way to get the constituents out that we want. So typically for fennel, I do highly recommend a tea. Now, as far as safety considerations some people find fennel over stimulating if used excessively. And by that we would be looking at typically like capsule use where you’re taking just hundreds of milligrams a day.
It’s a lot harder to do in a tea where you’re drinking a few cups a day. It is. Also considered an estrogenic ERG, one of its key constituents is estragole, and it is not typically recommended in pregnancy, or if you do use it in pregnancy, we recommend using very low doses because of that. If you guys have had a positive experience using fennel as a galactagogue, I would love to hear about it.
I’d love to hear if you got your own, like as a loose leaf herb, or if you grew it, or if you used it in a tea blend. So please let us know. The next herb I want to talk about is catnip. Now, people kind of look at me sideways when I talk about using catnip as a medicinal herb because they typically think about it in, you know, its use as something that we give cats to send them into an absolute frenzy, but surprisingly, it is very calming for humans and it is a very safe herb.
We typically use it. Both for children and adults alike. And one of the great things is that catnip is really easy to grow. It’s a perennial herb. It’s a mint. And if you guys have ever grown mint in your yards, you know, it’s pretty easy to establish and a little bit hard to get rid of. So this would be a great beginner herb to grow.
Now it’s not actually a traditional galactagogue, however. I recommend it when we are dealing with low supply because it is really helpful for when we have to manage high stress levels and anybody who has ever experienced low milk supply can attest that it is stressful and high levels of stress inhibit your milk ejection reflex.
So we’re not having those like high levels of oxytocin flowing around. Our milk isn’t coming out as easily, which then contributes to that really terrible cycle of having low milk production. So I love to throw in some of these nerve vines. We call that they’re relaxing herbs and catnip is also a very nice nutritive herb.
It’s very safe, very nontoxic helps you sleep better. And I, I mean, You know, I really think anytime anybody comes to me stressed out about a medical issue they’re having, I’m like, what if we did something that helped you manage that stress because that stress is always going to inhibit your healing and you’re moving forward in some way.
Again, I recommend this as a tea typically, but a tincture works really well, too. You can usually get catnip tea on its own if you’re buying it, like, in a tea bag, or you can buy it loose leaf, but a tincture works, too, and tinctures are alcohol extracts, but if you don’t Drink alcohol or you can’t have it for some reason.
And we’re talking about drop doses here. So very, very, very small amount. You can also get those extracted in glycerin and either one, I think works really well when we’re trying to make the choice about which one is best for you, I always ask clients. I’m like, well, what are you actually going to put in your body?
Are you going to sit down and make a cup of tea and drink it? Or. Are you the kind of person who things like pills and supplements work better for because a tincture is more for you than it is something you can take really quickly, you do not need to prepare it ahead of time, and it’s a very like physically small dose.
Disclaimer about this being an easy plant to garden, if you have cats around they might just roll in it constantly and kill it. One last thing to note about catnip is it is also an herb that we use to improve digestion. And I think you’re going to see that as like an overarching theme for pretty much all of the galactic ogs that I’m going to talk about today.
And I think it would be an interesting thing to look into a little bit further and see if that is part of what’s helping us make more milk with these. Okay, so the next herb I want to chat about is called blessed thistle. This is not milk thistle. That’s probably the most common thistle you will see medicinally used, but of course it’s related.
We also see this called holy thistle or St. Benedict’s thistle. It is a really interesting plant. So, so most of the thistles, I think possibly all of them are edible. So for a lot of traditional uses of this, you’ll see it recommended as like a salad green, if you, if you pull off the spines or even like to juice the stem, which is really thick and juicy.
And typically the herbs that we see with these traditional culinary uses, of course, are digestive herbs. And so blessed thistle is a bitter tonic. And what that means is it’s a bitter tasting plant and when our body. Haste bitter, it sets off this digestive chain and it helps us just improve our digestion and our digestive timing, right, because there’s a lot of things that have to happen in the right order for us to digest food properly.
And so that’s why with a lot of different cultures we see bitter greens as like the first thing that you eat before a large meal because it improves your digestion. So blessed thistle stimulates digestive secretions and bile. It can help in cases of things like appetite loss and indigestion, but we are talking about it today as a galactagogue and this herb has a very long history of use for that.
And personally, I think I’ve seen this herb work better than many others again. And really with like almost every herb here, I am going to recommend this as a tea because the nutrition of these herbs, of these leafy greens that I’m recommending to you for their galactagogue purposes are best extracted in a tea.
We’re getting more of those base vitamins and minerals extracting it into water. Versus taking it in another form, this herb does okay as a capsule, which I like, don’t say about a lot of herbs. I’m really like, I’ve got a problem with capsules, but partially that’s because a lot of the stuff we’re buying off the shelf in the store is really old.
So it’s just not going to work that well. So if you want to use it as in a capsule, I would recommend going like online to an herbal supplier specifically, because that’s going to be fresher, better quality. All of that.
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I want to chat about another herb that I often use with Blessed Thistle, and this is called Goat’s Roo. Now this one I do not recommend for every single person because it has a couple of contraindications here. But let’s chat about it. So Goat’s Roo is in the legume family, it’s a bean, and we’re using like What we call the aerial parts of this plant, so like leaves, stems, et cetera.
So one of the interesting things about this plants is that it is a galactagogue that we use specifically for people who have insufficient glandular tissue. because there is a theory that it works to help your body create more of that glandular tissue. However, it is also used to help people manage like low level diabetes.
It is a hypoglycemic herb. So, It should not be used for those who already deal with hypoglycemia who already have to manage low blood sugar issues. I would also say if you have diabetes type one or type two and you’re interested in using this herb for lactation, please speak with an herbalist specifically because it might interact with the medications that you’re already taking.
And I definitely You know, really don’t want that to mess up like how you’re managing this condition overall because, you know, if your blood sugars are going to be out of control, that is going to also damage your milk supply. Now typically we use goat’s rue as a tea again, but I’ve also used this as a tincture, especially for folks with IGT where we’re looking at more long term use of this.
And I like to combine this with nettle as well. So, Blessed Thistle, Goat’s Root, and Nettle together make a really good mix, but again, this one is definitely one where you probably want to chat with someone who’s got a little bit more knowledge of herbs before you use it or before you use it in large amounts specifically.
And we do have some smaller, like older studies that were done on Goat’s Root that did show it. It significantly improved milk supply for the individuals who participated, but the quality of those studies is not great. So it’s kind of like one piece of information we consider, but I, I wouldn’t say it’s like very definitive information about that.
Incidentally, this is really commonly used in blend with fennel, blessed thistle, and fenugreek as like the mother’s milk blend. If you are interested in learning more about fenugreek, I did an entire episode on it because it feels like a very contentious topic in the lactation world, even though it’s just a plant.
So if you’re interested in listening to that and learning a lot more about that one specific herb, I believe that’s episode 135. We can link that in the show notes for you. I think it’s a great episode personally. And we not only look into like the Western understanding of Fenugreek, but we also look into the history, the cultural use the culinary use, all of that.
Now, the next herb I want to chat about, I’ve gotten a lot of questions about recently. So, but, but I do like it a lot. It’s called Moringa. And it’s got a lot of other common names too, like the divine tree, the miracle tree, all of that. It is native to India and it’s been introduced a lot all over the world, but it does grow in warmer climates.
Now, pretty much every part of this tree is used medicinally. And it has a lot of different indications for use. We see it used for digestive issues, skin issues, immune issues, kind of all over the board here. And when you look at the list of its herbal benefits, you might just be a little bit confused.
So I guess You know, the question for me is how well do I know this plant? Because I don’t grow it, and it’s not something I really used in my repertoire until recently. And a lot of the uses that we have recorded for it are certainly from folk remedy sources. They’re not all fully tested in any sort of controlled settings, but that’s, that’s, herbalists are pretty used to that.
Typically, when we’re looking at this for lactation, I am going to recommend that we use the leaf of this plant. Of course this is where we’re getting most of the nutritional content. And like I said, that’s pretty important while we’re breastfeeding and trying to support the body in a normal functioning.
And this plant has a lot of things like B vitamins, vitamins K, E, D, C, A. It’s got copper, magnesium, zinc, phosphorus, potassium. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. It’s a pretty amazing plant. And the drying process for this plant also concentrates the amount of chlorophyll into it. And it’s quite a lot higher than things like wheatgrass that we, you know, mainly use for that in these like health food smoothies.
Chlorophyll has been successfully used to treat all kinds of issues, particularly things like swelling and inflammation. It’s an antioxidant, so it’s wonderful for your body as well. Moringa leaf is traditionally given to pregnant and nursing people as a way to, like, bolster their nutritional intake, prevent anemia so it’s traditionally a very valuable herb.
Now, of course, before you take anything in pregnancy, check with your health care provider about whether or not it’s appropriate for you. One of the things that I personally like Moringa for is I feel like it brings a little bit of balance and focus to my day. Just, you know, work with virtue of tea. And I, I really like that feeling.
And again, I’m focusing here on safe and effective herb. So I think this is a very safe herb for most people to use. But I do see this sold in Capsules where it just has a very large quantity of the herb in it and also you can find capsules of different parts of the plant which have different like safety ratings, different constituents, things like that.
So just be wary if you’re buying it in capsule form about how much you’re taking and what part of the plant is in there.
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So the last herb that I really want to focus on today is called shatavari, and a lot of people call this herb the queen of herbs. It is asparagus racemosus is the botanical name and it has a lot of common names. You might also hear this called like wild asparagus. Now it is not native to North America, but you definitely can try to grow this yourself if you want to.
And we are primarily using the roots for this herb, but the little baby sprouts of it can certainly be eaten just like regular asparagus. Now, this is a very important herb for the female body. We use it for things like infertility, for issues with menstruation, all of that. And it is also traditionally considered a galactagogue.
So one could assume that we have some influence on female hormones with this herb, but I don’t know how much like formal westernized scientific studies have been done about that, but it is considered nourishing to the uterus. and to the ovaries as well. Now, this plant has some phytoestrogens as well, which is most of the herbs that we’re using for like female reproductive issues have that.
And, you know, the way that these theoretically work in herbs is that they promote the growth differentiation and physiological functions of the female genital tract, pituitary gland breast glands, and other organs and tissues in both sexes, of course. And we consider shatavri a hormone modulator, so meaning that it brings things back to baseline, back to regular functioning.
It’s also an adaptogen. So an adaptogen is an herb that helps us deal with change and stress. It’s going to promote kind of general physical and mental health as well and that’s one of the reasons I really love shatabri is that I think it does truly promote a sense of well-being and balance and calm when we’re using this herb.
Now there are just a few contraindications for shatavri, so types that we would not take this herb. So because it’s a member of the asparagus family, it has a diuretic effect. It will make you pee. However, if you are already on diuretic medication, say you know, you’re dealing with high blood pressure, You might want to consider some caution adding another diuretic medicinal on top of that.
And also some people are just going to be more sensitive to these phytoestrogens. Anybody who has an estrogen sensitive tumor in particular should stay away from this herb. Now again, I’m going to recommend this as a tea, but because we’re using the root, we are going to have to do a slightly different extraction process.
Simply just pouring hot water over a bag of, you know, shatavari tea is not going to extract everything we want from it. So usually I recommend doing a decoction or essentially putting the root into a pot of water and Simmering it for about 15 to 20 minutes and that’s going to get more of the constituents out that you want Because the like cellular structure of the root is just harder to break down Now this also does really really well as a tincture because we are macerating that root when we’re extracting it into the alcohol So like really shredding it up and breaking down those cells and making all of those constituents more available to our bodies all right, well I, I really, I like all these herbs I talked about today.
I really encourage you guys to look into them a little bit further if you’re dealing with low supply and the traditional methods of increasing it just aren’t working for you. As always, I’m going to recommend that you consult with an herbalist if you have any special considerations or if you want to use any of the herbs that have some more contraindications for them.
I also, of course, Offer herbal counseling online, but I am not the only herbalist in the world. And I always recommend working with somebody local if possible, because you’re just going to have better access to them. They’re going to have recommendations about like local places to buy things, stuff like that.
If you’re interested in purchasing herbs online, I have a couple of recommendations for where to do that. My favorite place to purchase tinctures is Herb Farm, and the F sound in farm is actually a PH, so it’s a playoff of pharmacy, it’s a little fun. But I think their stuff is really high quality, and they typically sell, Like simple tinctures, there’s just one herb in each one, so you can mix and match your own, which I really like.
For loose leaf teas, I always recommend mountain rose herbs, star west herbs, and pacific botanicals. The last one there, you do have to purchase in larger quantities, so if like, You and a couple of friends want to get in or get some herbs together. You can do that. Or if you’re looking at long term use of something, that’s going to be a way to economically get like very high quality plants.
And I recommend you guys go to your local farmer’s markets and see if you have anybody who grows herbs locally. A lot of farmers do this. A lot of herbalists like grow and make their own remedies. And there are. Such a great resource. If you’re going to be using herbs in your daily life, thanks for tuning into this sort of unconventional episode of the milk minute podcast.
Heather, I’m sure deeply appreciates your patience while she’s dealing with some very busy things in her life. And next week we will get back to the both of us chatting and laughing and being our usual selves. And we’re really looking forward to that. If you liked this episode or any other episode of the Milk Minute that you have ever listened to, please consider joining our Patreon at Patreon.
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Well, thank you guys again, and we’ll see you next week.
