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Volume 5 Issue 5

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"So, eight days late, huh? You must be ge ng a li le uncomfortable?... If you're anxious, there are a few ways to help things along… actually there are things you can do… just some home remedies ...I've found that some of them are very effec ve…there's an herbal tea you can drink…" – Obstetrician in Friends, "The One Where Rachel is Late" The past century has vastly improved many outcomes in high-risk pregnancies and births, yet with these improvements has come the omnipresence of technology in nearly all aspects of normal pregnancy and birth. Since at least 2000, Cesarean sec on has been the most common hospital surgical procedure performed in the US, accoun ng for more than 34% of all US births. As a midwife and MD with a specialty in obstetrics, I'm grateful for the technology when it's needed. Unfortunately, technology is far too overused in pregnancy and birth in the US. In spite of spending more money, and using more technologies on obstetric care than any other country in the world, the United States consistently ranks poorly in birth outcome and infant mortality worldwide, o en below many less modernized countries. Addi onally, the use of pharmaceu cals in pregnancy is excessive, and not without risks. While the horrors of thalidomide are behind us, women in their 40s, and men too, whose mothers took DES during pregnancy in the 1960s and 1970s are s ll dealing with the repercussions in the forms of increased reproduc ve cancers (and genital deformi es), and new studies con nue to reveal hidden harms, though perhaps less extreme, of pharmaceu cals currently in use, including what we've all been told is safe un l recently – Tylenol. And yet another recently study has demonstrated that the most common medica on given in pregnancy for yeast infec ons increases miscarriage. Shocking sta s cs have been coming out about the dispensing of prescrip on drugs, including narco cs, to pregnant women in the U.S. One recent study looked at the pa ern of prescrip on drugs (other than vitamins) dispensed to over one million women enrolled in Medicaid for at least 3 months before and then throughout pregnancy from 2002 to 2007. Almost 83% of these women were dispensed at least one medica on; half of these were an bio cs. Another study found that the rate of narco cs dispensed to pregnant women who were enrolled in Medicaid in these same years increased from 18.5% to 22.8% with rates exceeding 30% in five states. Among women of reproduc ve age generally in the United States from 2008 to 2012, almost 40% of Medicaid-enrolled women and 28% of commercially insured women filed claims for narco cs. Against this backdrop, the use of herbs in pregnancy seems rather benign. Yet it's important to be aware of the safety issues when using herbs in pregnancy, because not everything that's natural is safe for pregnant moms. The desire to avoid unnecessary – and poten ally unsafe – medical interven ons, and an inclina on toward natural approaches has led many pregnant women to seek Abby's Magazine - Volume 5 Issue 5 | Page 37 Herbal Medicines in Pregnancy: What's Safe & What's Not?

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