First, I apologize for my misspellings of both 'goat's rue' and 'galega
officinalis.'  I was apparently more tired than I realized yesterday
when I wrote my post.

Judy posted her concerns about the toxicity issues and related concerns
for goat's rue. I have also spent time examining these issues as I am
also concerned about safety. There are some problems that make analysis
difficult: first, as Judy pointed out, animal responses to various
plants/herbs can vary by species, and so while we take warning from
animal reports, we do not know for sure from them how they can be
extrapolated to humans without human studies.

Second is the problem of breaking herbs down into individual
constituents, studying the affects of isolated components, and then
generalizing the results back to the whole herb as a concern. The
combination of various components in a plant can alter the overall
effect, and herbalists consider that the effect may be ameliorating per
actual historical use and experience.

Thirdly, there is always the question of what part of the plant might be
causing the problem as it is not always the whole plant but may be root,
leaf, flower or seed, as well as the season. Experienced herbalists are
very particular and intentional in when and how they collect specific
herbs, as well as how they process them. I have spoken with Kathryn
Higgins, owner of Motherlove Herbal, about how she processes goat's rue
for her tinctures; she did quite a bit of research on goat's rue before
developing her protocols and uses specific parts that are harvested
before flowering only. Kathryn has been manufacturing goat's rue
tincture for three years now, and to date has had only one complaint--
one case of GI upset in a baby that cleared when the goat's rue was
discontinued (she maintains Adverse Event Reports on all of her
products).

However, Judy is right: no one has studied transfer of goat's rue into
milk, nor any of the other herbal galactogogues. Fennel is also a
popular and well-known galactogogue used frequently in parts of Europe,
and there is a case report of toxicity in a baby when the mother
consumed large amounts of the herb (quarts+ of infusion) per day. It
would be wonderful to see someone actually study this and quantify this
information for us. We would not even be having this discussion if
western medicine had remedies for our mothers, but since there is no
concerted effort among our scientists to tackle this, we are left to
wrestle with low supply mysteries and the question of which is more
dangerous: mother's milk with herb/drug vs artificial baby milk.

It is precisely because western science has not studied these problems
that we are forced to turn to traditions of herb uses as passed down
through herbalists. I have done my own research in reading available
reports, contacting some top herb experts in the U.S. (BTW, when it
comes to lactation issues, they all point back to Sheila Humphrey, RN
IBCLC as the most knowledgeable person to consult with!), conferring
with pharmacists Tom Hale and Frank Nice, and conferring with herbalists
who are also knowledgeable in lactation. The truth is that more often
than not, some knowledge is obtained only as the result of experience
that is hopefully based on good legwork and informed consent.

~Lisa Marasco MA IBCLC

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