This is to second Kathy Dettwyler's excellent post on herbs and breastfeeding, and I thank Barbara for her excellent note...and can confirm that she is the consummate professional I have ever had the pleasure of working with. What Kathy D says is a double-edged sword. Herbs are tools, as are any medication...and we should not recommend these things without having full knowledge. I wish I had more knowledge, personally. Kind regards, Kathleen What concerns me is: (1) the general public's lumping together of all alternative medicines including herbs, nutritional supplements, homeopathic medicines, Bach flower remedies, etc. into one big group and not really having any idea that there are differences among these. I've heard people refer to ginko and garlic as "homeopathic medicines" for just one example. I've heard people say that you can take any "herbal" medicine, in any quantity -- that you can't overdose on them. I've heard people refer to Vitamin C as an herbal medicine. I think the great unwashed masses out there just lump all this stuff together. (2) the allopathic medical professionals who don't know a thing about herbs or homeopathy or nutritional supplements, and who therefore either tell people they are all useless and to stay away from them, or tell people they are harmless and to take as much as they want of whatever they want. Just one example: My radiation oncologist asked if I had any complaints (besides the usual side effects of radiation) and I mentioned that the hot flashes from chemotherapy-induced menopause were really annoying. The usual treatment for hot flashes is estrogen, but I can't take estrogen because my breast cancer is estrogen-receptor positive. I said "Do you know of any herbal treatments or nutritional supplements that might help with the hot flashes but not act like estrogen on the tumor cells?" (I'm thinking here about soy and yam, etc.). And he looked me straight in the eyes and said "Sure, take whatever you like. Can't hurt, might help." I just smiled thinly and kept my mouth shut. I've read enough of the soy literature to know that soy is highly controversial in the context of breast cancer -- some think it helps a lot, others think it hurts, and there are studies to support both sides. Kathleen B. Bruce, BSN, IBCLC co-owner Lactnet, Indep. Consultant Williston, Vermont mailto:[log in to unmask] http://homepages.together.net/~kbruce/kbblact.html LACTNET Archives http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/lactnet.html *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html