Labor pains.

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.herbs
Subject: Re: Home birth
From: aj982.FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Kerry Eady)
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 00:22:51 GMT

> My wife and I are having our next child at home. Our first was born at a hospital but we didn't like the baby factory environment. Anyway my wife needed some serious pain medication for the labor pains. We believe that there will be less pain involved in a home birth (for many reasons) but we would like to have something natural available for pain if necessary. We know about black cohosh for accelerating the labor but for the labor pains? Any info and/or references would be appreciated!

I was lucky in that my first (and only so far) labour was only 5 hours long. All of my transitional contractions piggybacked (2 or 3 contractions in a row without a break between) so it was a very INTENSE labour!

Because I was home, and able to concentrate fully on the here and now of the experience, I never thought to ask for pain relief.

When you are looking for a midwife ask about their experience with plants. My midwive had skullcap (general pain), St.John's Wort for back pain, and Motherwort for afterpains. Like I said, I didn't use any of them then. About a month after Tyren arrived I was hit with a wave of postpartum depression and used Motherwort to ease the heartache.

My best pregnancy advice herbally is too avoid taking vitamin E supplements, get yours from natural sources. For some reason vitamin E causes the placenta to stick to the walls of the uterus. You can go into shock with the body's attempts to expel it. Then you'll end up having it scraped out at the hospital.

Massage the perineum Daily with olive oil and vitamin E. Tyren was in some distress at the end because the cord was sooo tight around his neck they had to cut it before his little head was completely out. I had one push to birth him or they'd cut the opening and deliver him that way. I didn't need an episiotomy and the midwives were shocked to find I didn't even nick myself birthing him that violently. All bruising was gone in 2 days. Massage works!

And drink lots of nettle and raspberry tea during the pregnancy. Nettle ensures a plentiful supply of vitamin K in the blood for the birth and Raspberry eases labour, and helps prevent hemmoraging.

Gotta go, Wes says Tyren is ready for his bedtime nursing marathon,

Kerr