Raps' thread reminded me of a story I heard during an antenatal visit with a midwife.
I went for my 30 week check-up for my second successful pregnancy and saw a bottle of Raspberry Leaf tablets on the midwife's desk. "Oh, good" I said "I've been meaning to ask you when I can safely start taking those." A horrifed look crossed my midwife's face "Those are very dangerous, I can't recommend them." I was confused, "But I took a gradully increasing dose of them during the last few weeks of Jazzy's pregnancy and had a low-pain labour with no need for any assistance." My midwife re-checked my file, relaxed a little and said "Since you know how to use them safely and haven't had a bad reaction to them, that's okay. Start taking them from 34-35 weeks and slowly increase the dose." She then told me this story:
A woman presented at Birth Suite, around 30 weeks into her first pregnancy with heavy bleeding and regular contractions. She told them she hadn't been doing anything out of the ordinary, had been resting and relaxing, not taking any medication, fairly normal blood pressure, non-smoker, non-drinker, healthy and up until now, a low-risk pregnancy. After two days of trying to stabalise her and giving her shots to build the (surprisingly) unstressed baby's lungs up... while the doctors scrambled to figure out what was wrong ... a nurse walked in on the woman blithely swallowing a double dose of raspberry leaf tablets. The nurse snatched the pills away from her and stormed off to collect a doctor, who was a little more diplomatic. The woman apparently threw a huge hissy fit which boiled down to "But they're natural, that makes them safe!"
After that, the doctors were able to stem the bleeding and transferred her to a hosptial specialising in neo-natal care. The empty bottle was sent down to the Antenatal Care Unit, so that the midwifes would know to remind the expectant mothers not to take it.
My midwife ended the story with: "And this is why we can no longer recommend these tablets or the tea."
I went for my 30 week check-up for my second successful pregnancy and saw a bottle of Raspberry Leaf tablets on the midwife's desk. "Oh, good" I said "I've been meaning to ask you when I can safely start taking those." A horrifed look crossed my midwife's face "Those are very dangerous, I can't recommend them." I was confused, "But I took a gradully increasing dose of them during the last few weeks of Jazzy's pregnancy and had a low-pain labour with no need for any assistance." My midwife re-checked my file, relaxed a little and said "Since you know how to use them safely and haven't had a bad reaction to them, that's okay. Start taking them from 34-35 weeks and slowly increase the dose." She then told me this story:
A woman presented at Birth Suite, around 30 weeks into her first pregnancy with heavy bleeding and regular contractions. She told them she hadn't been doing anything out of the ordinary, had been resting and relaxing, not taking any medication, fairly normal blood pressure, non-smoker, non-drinker, healthy and up until now, a low-risk pregnancy. After two days of trying to stabalise her and giving her shots to build the (surprisingly) unstressed baby's lungs up... while the doctors scrambled to figure out what was wrong ... a nurse walked in on the woman blithely swallowing a double dose of raspberry leaf tablets. The nurse snatched the pills away from her and stormed off to collect a doctor, who was a little more diplomatic. The woman apparently threw a huge hissy fit which boiled down to "But they're natural, that makes them safe!"
After that, the doctors were able to stem the bleeding and transferred her to a hosptial specialising in neo-natal care. The empty bottle was sent down to the Antenatal Care Unit, so that the midwifes would know to remind the expectant mothers not to take it.
My midwife ended the story with: "And this is why we can no longer recommend these tablets or the tea."
Comment