Herbal Tea for Pregnancy and Pregnant Women: Is It Safe?

The issues of herbal tea and pregnancy have been a point of interest of many pregnant women. It is a known fact that in order to give life to a healthy and happy baby, it is recommended to all pregnant women to avoid consuming foods or beverages with caffeine, alcohol, artificial sweeteners, and other artificial compounds that can carry potential risks to the baby’s health. However, what about herbs and herbal remedies? Which are safe and which are not? Looking for am answer to this question sometimes takes a lot of time and efforts, but still many expecting moms can not be sure what is good and what is bad about using a certain herbal tea for pregnancy. Let’s try to take a closer look at the problem.

In common conditions, if used in small and moderate amounts, herbal teas are considered quite safe and risk-free natural remedies which can be used by all of us for treating and preventing virtually all possible health condition. However, herbal teas contain various compounds and ingredients, some of which can be harmful and dangerous for pregnant women. For example, if consumed in large or moderate amounts, such herbal teas as hibiscus, anise, chamomile, sage, lemongrass, yarrow, parsley, stinging nettle, licorice root, mugwort, rosemary, catnip, sassafras, and some others, can have negative effects and compromise health condition of a pregnant women, as well as cause miscarriage and other serious problems.

Besides, pregnant women should stay away from all sorts of teas and herbal teas rich in caffeine. Those include all kind of traditional teas made from the leaves of Camellia sinensis (including green tea, white tea, black tea, and others), as well as famous mate tea and its variations. Caffeine content information can usually be found on the labels, so every pregnant woman should carefully watch the labels of the teas she is using. There are several herbs and herbal teas which should be strictly avoided by all pregnant women in order to protect their health and the health of their babies. Those are lobelia, skullcap, comfrey, woodruff, kava root, and valerian, so these kinds of herbal tea and pregnancy should never go together.

In any way, those pregnant women who are interested in safety of a particular herbal tea for pregnancy should not worry about possible terrible side effects of problems caused by herbal tea consumption. According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it is actually quite safe using the most common herbal teas in very small amounts (1-2 cups a day). The main idea is not to drink the same herbal tea for days and weeks, and choose new herbal teas for every day, in order to harvest maximum of nutritional and therapeutic properties of herbal teas for pregnancy. Finally, the safest and the most recommended types of herbal tea for pregnancy include ginger root tea, peppermint tea, lime blossom tea, roasted barley tea, rose hip tea, and wild thyme tea. To avoid complications, talk to your health care specialist before using one or another herbal tea during pregnancy.

Author Info: Hi! My name is Carla and I am a 5th year medical student at HYMS. I am interested in alternative medicine and I have done months researching the topic of herbal medicine. Besides, I like interviewing people and learning more about their experiences with one or another type of herbal treatments. I am willing to contribute to this site with my knowledge, and I would be happy to help you out to the best of my ability with any specific questions or problems related to alternative medicine.

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