Elfnoodles

One of the things recommended in the materials my midwife gave me was “NORA” tea – Nettle, Oat straw, Raspberry leaf, and Alfalfa – as a pregnancy tonic three times a day. I mentioned it in the IDP, but had not yet delved into researching the actual content of the tea to see if the wonders they ascribe to it in this stuff are backed up by any other sources.

Heh, heh.

Needless to say, some sources say pregnant women shouldn’t have certain of the ingredients, while others say they should. The ingredient I looked up first was nettle, since raspberry leaf seems to be the most traditional pregnancy tea and oat straw and alfalfa are pretty innocuous. Here is a representative pro for nettle and a representative con. Here is one of those sites that is anti-everything for pregnant women (note the sanctimonious observation at the bottom that yerba mate contains as much caffeine as coffee and must be avoided, even though here they admit that there is no evidence that moderate caffeine intake is harmful and fall back on trying to make you feel like an irresponsible person for “risking” it anyway. I ignore these sites). Just for fun, here is a site recommending the mixture for mares.

It’s somewhat similar with raspberry leaf, although in that case there seem to be more sources consistently recommending it and with more agreement about what it does, and virtually no sources providing a reason to avoid it other than “it hasn’t been fully studied, so you don’t really know what effect it will have.”

The most disturbing observation I made about nettle was that the people in favor of it seem to be more focused on its nutritional content – midwives have this obsession about iron, vitamin K, calcium, and chlorophyll (to name a few), and nettles contain them. The sources recommending against it (or, simply not listing pregnancy among the conditions it is indicated for) are looking more at the active effects. Are the people recommending it so busy getting excited about the iron content that they don’t notice it’s a diuretic and antihistamine (among other things)? Those are often the very effects they cite when telling you to avoid caffeine and cold medicine, respectively. They already have you drinking oat straw and alfalfa mostly for nutritive value anyway, but the nettle doesn’t seem as wise.

I’m going to skip the nettle.

There is no ending to the midwife’s concern about nutrition, by the way. Concentrate on protein and you’re not getting enough fruit and vegetables; concentrate on fruit and vegetables and you’re not getting enough protein. Be sure to take the big prenatal vitamins to get all of the vitamins and minerals you might possibly need, since even if you get close to an ideal diet, you still should worry. And then, drink this tea, since it is full of vitamins and minerals. The point where I have enough “nutrition” does not seem to exist.