8 is great....pregnancy tea



Welcome to my pregnancy series.  I suppose if I was a more organized person I would have topics in an organized manner.  But, you are out of luck, because organized I am not.  Instead, the topics will be on issues I may be encountering at the moment, or moments that I may soon encounter, or they may just be on things I've learned from past pregnancies.  When dealing with any type of "health" issue, please be responsible and consult your health care provider to find what is right for *you*.  In this series I will be sharing what I have done, or will be doing, and the results.  I am not an expert, even with seven children and an eighth on the way.  It seems the more I learn, the more I realize I do not know!  But I hope you will find some things useful in this series.  And, please, share what has worked for you.  Let's get started!

A Super Duper Pregancy Tea

Tea is a wonderful way of getting essential nutrients that are easily absorbed/digested.  The base of any pregancy tea I have come across is red raspberry leaf.  Usually alfalfa and nettle are added, along with peppermint for flavoring.  Above you will see what I put into my pregancy tea: red raspberry leaf, alfalfa, dandilion root, dandilion leaf, nettle, oat straw and red clover.  I do not add bulk peppermint to my mix as I had read that peppermint should not be consumed on a daily basis.  I don't remember the exact reasons, but I think it may be that it inhibits the absorption of some nutrients if drunk on a daily basis.  I thought I would play it safe and I only put peppermint in my tea on occasion.

Until I came accross this wonderful "Pregnancy Notes" series, I had been just mixing up the bulk herbs as needed, with varying amounts.  A bit of this, a little of that, maybe more of this one over here.  It was nice to come across a 'recipe' to work with.  I found other recipes online, but none used the same herbs as I did, except for the above site that I am linking to.  Like I said in my previous post, why reinvent the wheel?  I do not have a good herbal book on hand to list all the qualities of each herb listed above, but found all that information in the pregancy tea post at "Just Making Noise".  I hope you enjoy the information she has provided!

There is conflicting advice on how much of the tea you should drink.  The usual guidelines are to drink one cup daily during the first trimester, two cups daily during the second trimester, and three cups daily during the third. 

My dreaded all day sickness has taken hold...already.  Ugh.  I felt a small bit of it coming on yesterday.  We went to a Memorial Day picnic where I ate a GAPS no-no.  That evening I felt horrid!  However, I found myself feeling really yucky all day.  Just like that, no building up, just two feet jumping in.  I am hoping this will be short lived as I can not deal with being sick to my stomach.  Broken knee?  No problem.  Slipped disk (after some healing time), no problem.  The flu?  Besides the two extremely fall on my face exhausted days, no problem.  Not fun to be sure, but I can work around those types of issues.  But an upset tummy?  My. World. Stops.  Yeah, seems silly.  Soooooo, I think I may try adding some ginger root to my tea to see if I notice any difference in my tummy.  Fingers crossed :-)

Here are the herbs all layed out.  Let me just say that my boys were having a wee bit too much fun trying to 'help' me.  In the past I have bought the pre-mixed pregnancy tea from the Bulk Herb Store.  Their products are very fresh, and I've always enjoyed anything I've ordered from them.

I ran out out of my the pre-mixed tea, and had most of the herbs from my local herbal store, so I just went and purchased the red raspberry leaf to make up my own.  I also recently purchased a few herbs from Herbalcom.com.  The prices are half of those I've seen elsewhere online.  Their service is quick and, from the couple of items I've purchased, seem very fresh.  I think I may try to buy a few bulk herbs from there again when my current stash of pregancy tea herbs runs out.

This is the 'recipe' I used to make my current batch, taken from "Just Making Noise":

4 parts Red Raspberry Leaf
4 parts Nettle Leaf
3 parts Red Clover Blossoms
3 parts Alfalfa
2-3 parts Peppermint
1 part Dandelion Leaf (optional)
1 part Dandelion Root (optional)
1 part Oatstraw (optional)

If you plan on making an order for herbs may I suggest that you do so through "Just Making Noise's" affiliate link?  They are a missionary family and I am sure they would welcome your purchase.

And as a side note, can I just say that I am drooling over her "Making Ice Cream" e-book?  Oh. My. Goodness. 

Do any of you have a favorite pregnancy tea?  Do share in the comments below!