Empowering Pregnant Moms: The Science Behind Red Raspberry Leaf Tea
Episode Description
In this episode of The Mama’s Journey podcast, host Ashleigh, a perinatal educator and mom, delves into the popular topic of red raspberry leaf tea and its effects during pregnancy.
Ashleigh explores common questions about when to start drinking it, its potential benefits and risks, and the varying opinions of medical professionals and moms. She discusses findings from multiple studies, addressing how the tea might impact labour, contractions, and even blood sugar levels in gestational diabetes. Listeners are encouraged to make informed choices based on evidence and their unique circumstances.
The episode also touches on the importance of critical analysis of medical advice and provides tips for consuming the tea correctly. Ashley highlights the potential postpartum benefits of red raspberry leaf tea and introduces her postpartum recovery program to support new moms.
Episode Breakdown
00:00 Introduction to Red Raspberry Leaf Tea
01:28 Personal Experience and Background
02:10 Deep Dive into Red Raspberry Leaf Tea
03:42 Understanding the Studies
08:53 Analyzing the Research
15:16 Introduction to Red Raspberry Leaf Tea Effects
15:39 Study on 108 Pregnant Women
16:45 Dosage Variations and Their Implications
18:06 Promising Results and Further Research
18:36 Study on 192 Pregnant Women
21:21 Gestational Diabetes Case Study
23:48 Contradictory Study on C-Section Rates
26:01 Final Thoughts and Recommendations
28:33 Postpartum Benefits and Recovery Program
30:07 Conclusion and Upcoming Topics
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Read the transcript here:
Red raspberry leaf tea.
So I’m Facebook due dates, grips.
You’ll see posts from moms asking or moms to be asking about when. They’re allowed to start drinking red raspberry leaf tea, and does it really help to stop labour? And does it make it easier? And what is everyone else doing? Because that’s, you know, social nature to crowdsource crowdsource our decision-making.
To which there will be hundreds of replies from moms that say things like:
“My OB said never to take it before 36 weeks. It’s super dangerous to take it before 36 weeks.”
“I drink it every day after drinking all my life, I drank it before pregnancy. Drank it all the way through and I, I just love drinking it.”
To: “I can’t stand the taste. It’s disgusting. I tried it once and I couldn’t have it again.”
Or you’ll have, uh, opinions of moms saying that they drank at religiousy, according to their doctors from 36 weeks in their last pregnancy. And they still into 41 weeks, or they still required a C-section. Well, they still required induction.
And so it clearly doesn’t work.
Well, if you want to find out more about red raspberry leaf tea.
Here is a podcast that goes over the what, the when, the why and the how of this seemingly methodological magic labour juice.
Just to jump in.
Personal Experience and Background:
My name is Ashleigh. I’m a perinatal educator, mind-body specialist and ex children’s educator. I’m a mom. And then he has to support moms on this crazy journey.
Welcome to my podcast, the mama’s journey.
A podcast for moms who are looking for pregnancy and postpartum health and wellness tips that are easy to implement evidence-based and impactful.
Motherhood is hard enough as it is without having to wade through all the advice, questions, and opinions out there. This podcast covers the topics that come up most. With research to back it. In hopefully easily digestible words so that you can get to the facts and get back to focusing on being the mama you want to be.
Deep Dive into Red Raspberry Leaf Tea
So today I’m going to talk about red raspberry leaf tea, and a little bit of context here. So you understand why I’m choosing this topic at the moment?
I am currently a mom to an 18 month old and I’m pregnant just under 19 weeks pregnant with my second child.
During my last pregnancy I started out just following the pack. Doing what was expected of you? Uh, I took OB led care from the start. Not knowing, not looking into midwifery led care, not looking into alternative health practices. Just following. Following the pack. Uh, and not being very informed in my decisions I made.
You know, you’re so overwhelmed as a new mother with everything that’s going on in this new life that you’re creating.
And you’ve got all these lists of things that you have to do. So following the laid out path in front of you, in terms of how to have the baby. Is. Easier it’s natural and it’s, there’s nothing wrong with it because we don’t know better.
This time round. It’s very different for me. I have been working in the prenatal space, the perinatal sphere. Since 10 weeks postpartum. The last time. And I have learnt a lot.
Red raspberry leaf tea is something that I had a deep dive into recent. The considering that I’m 19 weeks pregnant now. And I’m looking a lot more into herbal based remedies this time round as well as nutrition, exercises and generally looking at supporting the body as a whole. In this process in this journey to, to mama hood well through motherhood.
Understanding the Studies
So what I did. So I went to find a bunch of studies. I went to find all the studies that the providers are actually referring to. So the providers that are saying don’t take it before 36 weeks. Versus the providers would say it’s safe all the time. I went to actually go find the actual studies. I’ve read them and find out what they, what they really said. And I’m going to discuss them here with you today.
I will link all these studies in the shownotes to anyone who wants to follow up with the information themselves. Because really, this is about informed decisions and about empowering moms to choose the path that works best for them.
There is a lot of buzz out there about informed consent about understanding all the risks and it’s for good reason. But so much advice is given and so many opinions are also given.
And we often don’t know what is fact what it’s not, we don’t know where this advice is based on research bias opinion or anecdotal information or whatever else that could possibly be needing it.
There’s also a lot of misinformation in the form of how facts and stats are presented to mothers.
For example, There’s a stat that comes up in in other research that I’m doing, and I’m just using it as an example. The providers are saying that a risk of something doubles when X happens.
And when you hear something doubles, the risk doubles. that is crazy. That this is doubling. That is a huge thing. That’s a huge change. Okay. I’m able to half my risk by not doing X, whatever.
But when you actually look in dive deep into the stats of it, you’ll find that the specific risk that they’re talking about is the risk is rising from 0.22% to 0.44%.
So, yes, it is doubling, but the overall risk is still less than 1%.
Which is a big difference between the risk doubling from 20% to 40%, you know, it’s doubling. From 0.22 to 0.44%. It means that it’s still a very minimal risk is still less than 1% chance that this thing can happen.
But the language that is being used to present the facts to the moms is fear-inducing and it is almost persuasive to convince moms one way or another. This is just an example to help you understand that you need to examine the language of the facts that have been presented to you.
Okay. I’m not perfect.
So I’m going to have biases as well. And the facts that I’m presenting to you, I’m trying to present it to you with the percentages and the numbers so that you can understand it yourself. But that’s why I’m providing the studies for you to look at. So you can also just go double-check that I’m not feeding you on with my own opinions and my own biases.
Truly making informed decisions and empowered moms.
Yeah. Okay. So let’s get great. Let’s start off with what red raspberry leaf tea is.
It’s a, it’s a herb but it’s been found to be one of the top five herbs used by pregnant woman’s and as well as being prescribed a complimentary and integrative medicine practitioners. The other popular herbs in order for popularity are ginger, camomile, cranberry juice. And evening Primrose.
I’m sure all of you have heard take this for that. Take that for this right. Historical uses of red raspberry leaf include the prevention of miscarriage prevention of post date pregnancies (to provent going over term). The decrease of discomfort in predromanal labor. Who wouldn’t want that? And to decrease morning sickness again, who wouldn’t want that?
It’s also consumed for nutritional value because the plant contains many nutrients, such as vitamins A, C, E, calcium and potassium. As well as magnesium.
Overall the herb seens to reduce the risks for postdate pregnancies and appeals generally safe to use. (This is from an integrative medicine book.) Okay.
It is perhaps the most historically venerated herbal uterine tonics. So there’s a long history of recommending this hip to pregnant women, across many different cultures.
And here is a quote that I got from a website that is giving you a basic overview of what’s been said about red raspberry leaf tea online. All the websites generally say the same thing. So, this is what it’s generally putting across is:
“Medical studies have shown that RRL can be consumed safely during pregnancy and can decrease the length of labour and the number of interventions used such as artificial rupture of membrane, assisted delivery and c section. RRL is also thought to help prevent pregnancies from pre- and post-term gestations (delivering too early or too late)
Rich in iron, this herb has helped tone the uterus, increase milk production, decrease nausea, and ease labor pains. Many pregnancy teas contain red raspberry leaf to help promote uterine health during pregnancy. There is some controversy about whether this should be used throughout pregnancy or just in the second and third trimester, so many health care providers remain cautious and only recommend using it after the first trimester.”
And by the end of the day, choosing to consume it is, it should be based on our understanding of what it actually is and what can and can’t do to you. So you’re not one of those people that drank it the whole time and then say it did nothing. It did nothing for my labour.
Lets actually understand what it’s supposed to do. Okay.
Analyzing the Research
So let’s jump into the studies. (all studies linked below)
Now I found a very big study study number one. It’s it’s um,
It’s actually a review or analysis of the results of 13 separate studies done between 1941 and 2016. And. It’s an interesting one because it was inconclusive. So there were 13 studies done and the results were inconclusive going both ways where there’s a positive or negative influence on your pregnancy.
Okay. The studies weren’t done all on humans. So they weren’t only human studies. Five of the studies were done in labs using animal and human tissue. Two of the studies were done on animals and six of the studies were done on humans.
So you can click on the link in the show notes to have a look at the information, but let’s go through that.
I went through all these studies with 13 studies and I picked out some of the big ones, the ones that people referenced most when they’re talking about it. To break it down for you.
So the first study was done on animal tissues. Okay. So this is the first notable study that I saw was done on animal tissue. And it showed that red raspberry leaf tea relaxed, the intestinal smooth muscles, as well as the uterine muscles. And occasionally was followed by a contraction. This is the words. I’m quoting. So this study was done by using an infusion of herbs at 1/100th part of the human dose. And then administered to animal tissue in the lab. To see how the tissue actually responds to the herb.
What’s interesting, like this one, there’s two interesting things about the study and that, that statement that I said, number one, it shows that it relaxed the uterine muscles and soft tissue. Okay.
So some of the articles you read online or in books will say that red raspberry leaf tea consumes the digestive tract, it can help you with digestion. It can soothe all of those cramping and tenseness and you know, all those other digestive issues that we have when you’re pregnant. And here is a study that says that it does soothe the soft tissues of your digestive tract. It relaxes it. Okay.
And the second thing that the study said that had, I thought it was noted that the relaxing was occasionally followed by a contraction. It’s very important to look at the words. Okay. This is noteworthy because of the most famously spoken about benefit. As well as downside of the red raspberry leaf tea, is that it tones and strengthens the uterus.
That’s an every article that you read about it. Tones and strengthens the uterus.
A normal person talk. It means it encourages the uterus to contract. It encourages some sort of Braxton Hicks situation. So it’s not encouraging true labor or true contractions. Because true contractions require a lot of other things to be involved in the process, but it encourages Braxton Hicks. Because of this or encourages contraction of the muscles in the uterus. Because of this effect this tea is not then recommended that women drink it during the first trimester, because the contractions could perhaps increase the chance of miscarriage.
In fact. The recommended starting time to drink this tea is such a hot topic on its own.
When are you supposed to start drinking it?
That’s definitely 100% recommended to not start drinking it. Well in the first trimester. Unless you’re one of those people that have already been drinking it and continue to drink it all the way through.
So again, there’s contradictory information out there.
More traditional midwives might recommend you starting the tea in your second trimester or about 16 weeks. Most of the modern herbal friendly providers would rather have you wait until 20 weeks just to be safe.
And the more medicalized prevent providers tend to only recommend that you start drinking this from the third trimester, even. Even pushing it to only starting at 36 weeks.
Now the reason that the more herbal friendly providers taking the middle ground here suggest starting at early is because the Herb’s are not western medicine. They take time to work. So the longer you are drinking it, the more you can reap the benefits. They also want you to drink the tea for the nutritional benefits (it’s high in calcium, iron, magnesium, everything we discussed earlier.) And the nutrients take time to have an effect as well.
They want to body to have time to get used to the herb. And this is important because each of us is different. Every woman is going through pregnancy. It’s a different woman. Unique. Even the pregnancy itself is unique. The baby growing is unique. And so no one can actually be 100% sure of how your body will respond to anything you give it.
And in this case, Will your body respond by having a lot of contractions? Or will your body not even notice that you were drinking the tea?
No one knows for sure.
So erring on the side of caution, Western medicine says, don’t take the tea until it’s safe to do so. In case you do have an adverse reaction. But this does mean that you might not actually benefit from the buildup of nutrients and practice contractions over the course of time or using time as a good fact, to have a practice.
The providers is suggest that you do take it from 20 weeks to just to drink it in a very small dose at first. One cup a day and then watch what your body does. After a few weeks, you can then increased to two cups a day and then. After a few weeks again, you increase the three cups a day closer to the end of your pregnancy.
What this process does is it allows your body to genuinely gradually. Get used to the herb, gradually absorb the nutrients it contains.
And then as you increase your dosages encourages you to also watch what your body does – to tune in, listen and see what’s going on and make sure you’re doing the right thing for you.
If you increase it, you can start to feel more contractions. You can decrease it. So mainly you’re learning how to also listen to your body, to guide you in what it needs throughout the pregnancy.
Which is also a very different idea from that medicalized system The doctors listen to our bodies for us, and tell us what to do.
Getting back to the studies.
The study was done on the tissues actually backs up. All these recommendations. Okay. It shows that there is a possible chance of contractions or increase in Braxton Hicks when you are drinking it. The study specifically says “occasionally followed by a contraction.” Meaning there is no hard or fast rule here.
It sometimes causes a contraction. It sometimes doesn’t. So, if you do drink the tea from whenever you are in your pregnancy, Yes, it can possibly cause a contraction. But we don’t know how much it’s going to affect you until you start.
Study on 108 Pregnant Women
So the next study.
The next study was done on 108 pregnant women. Okay. So it’s not a very big study, but it is one of the studies that people actually seem to court quite often, or seem to refer to quite often. And 57 of these women consumed the tea 51 did not. So that’s a fairly even amount. Okay. Both ways.
The study showed that the use of red raspberry leaf tea could shorten labor, decrease the need for artificial rupture of membranes. So breaking the waters. Decrease the need for cesareans as well as decrease the need for forceps or vacuum assisted births. With no adverse effects. Okay. These are important words. With no adverse effects.
That’s huge.
There’s a massive benefits to be gained by drinking a tea. Right. So then why isn’t everyone given it? And it’s like standard. Let’s do it.
Well, firstly, because it is a small study, like I said earlier. Uh, only 108 woman. It has good results and it shows that further research should be done. Yes.
Okay. But it doesn’t show like a hard or fast rule.
It also, the study didn’t have a specific dosage that the woman’s were supposed to take. Okay. It varied greatly. In fact, some had the red raspberry leaf in the form of tea. Some had it in tablets, some use both tea and tablets. Some had tinctures.
Dosage ranged from one to eight cups. Or tablets per day. So some woman took one cup, one cup a day, one time today. Some wound drank eight cups of tea a day. Okay. That’s a huge difference.
13% of the women started taking the red raspberry tea between eight and 28.
59% between 30 and 34 weeks.
And 28% between 35 and 39 weeks.
So now we don’t know whether the increased time of those 13% decreased risk or if there was no impact or whatever. So again, there’s no standard starting timeless and it dosage, it’s difficult to really build a guideline of, of these. These wonderful benefits that the study is giving us.
The variation makes it super, super difficult to, for the scientist to pinpoint exactly how the tea works and pregnancies and how much to take away to stay. When to stop. But it is very encouraging.
That there is also cause to believe that the tea can shorten your liver, it can reduce the need to automate the need for artificial rush rupture of membranes.
It can possibly reduce your C-section rates. It can possibly reduce the need for instrumental birth and that it can do all of these things without any adverse effects. Anything bad happening. So it’s promising, and this is a study that people refer to a lot when they said decreases C-section rates and stuff like that.
The latest study.
Study on 192 Pregnant Women was done. A similar study, but a little bit more controlled, was done. And this study found that the second stage of labor was shorter. And that there was a decreased use of instruments and artificial retro membranes.
So second stage of labor just in case, you’re not sure. The labor is in three stages.
You’ve got the first stages from early labor all the way through till you fully dilated. That’s the first stage of labor. Second stage of labor is you’re fully dilated and now the baby is coming out. So it’s pushing, they call it the pushing stage. It’s from fully dilated to the baby is born. Third stage is for the placenta.
So the study found that the second stage of labor was shorter. The part where after you dilated to baby coming out. And that there was less use of instruments and artificial rupture of membranes in labour.
The study was done on 192 pregnant women. It’s a little bit bigger than the last study. 96, who used the red raspberry leaf tea and 96 did not.
And the dosage of the study was controlled. So they took their, this study.
The woman took tablets. They were taken from 32 weeks pregnant. The tablets were two tablets of 1.2 grams per day, which is less than the recommended dose of four grams per day. And they took it from 32 weeks until labor. The result of the study concluded that red raspberry leaf had no effect on the first stage of labor. Okay. We heard that. But they found that the second stage of labor pushing toppers. Was shorter by an average of 10 minutes.
Just under 10 minutes, nine point something minutes. It found that the use of forceps in delivery. Was reduced from 30% to 19%. That’s a big reduction. Okay.
And that there was no statistical differences with regards to adverse effects. So no statistical differences with regards to maternal blood loss, diastolic blood pressure, neonatal birth, weight, and meconium state fluids.
So this is another study that shows that the shorter labor I can, 10 minutes shorter in labour does not sound like a lot of time when you’re thinking of hours and hours of labor. 10 minutes, less pushing time might mean. A hell of a lot to you in the actual moments. With no adverse effects recorded, the study can be considered a win. I think for the case of drinking red raspberry leaf tea and another study that is showing that there needs to be more research done, right?
We need larger studies. We need more information on this.
So these are all very positive, amazing benefits, and they seems to be no adverse so far.
Gestational Diabetes Case Study
In it, the next study was an interesting one. Because I’m not actually looking at the study. But there was one notable case in the study that the scientists noticed and that everyone that sparked the interest, all the researchers, and it was just one woman. One woman in this study.
She showed a decrease in her glucose levels associated with the red raspberry leaf tea consumption.
What happened was she took a dosage of two cups of tea per day at 32 weeks for three days.
And then they noticed that her glucose levels began to drop. . And then she had to adjust her diet and she was doing insulin management in this process and she had to adjust her insulin management during those three days.
So then they remove the red raspberry leaf tea and upon removing the tea here sugar levels increased again.
And then they reintroduced the tea and showed it again, decreased.
Which is fascinating to know that after three days drinking two cups, you can have lower sugar levels.
This could be huge for the woman out there with gestational diabetes and general diabetes. Okay, but it is only one woman.
In this specific case, the mother have been continued to drink the tea for the remainder of her pregnancy. And here overall insulin use was decreased. Okay. And her baby was then born via C-section at 39 weeks. The baby was healthy with no problems with blood sugar.
So, although this is just one person and there’s definitely need for more studies on this. Women with gestational diabetes who are consuming red raspberry leaf tea, or who are considering to consume the tea, should monitor the levels of their sugars more closely upon the introduction of the tea and see if or how it might affect them. Because you might, if you have gestational diabetes of start controlled, you might be able to change your diet. Or if you are medicine controlled, you might have to adjust your medicines. Based on this one lady.
Okay.
So that’s a very fascinating one and. Yeah, it’s, it’s something to be interesting to, to be followed and hopefully the researchers can follow up on this and give us more information about how this can affect our blood sugars.
Contradictory Study on C-Section Rates
So there is one study. One more study that I’m going to discuss. And this one is a little bit on the other side. It did deserves a special mention. Because it is the only study so far to show an increased risk of cesarean with the use of red raspberry leaf tea. So we’ve had all these studies saying that there’s less chance.
And now he has a study saying that there’s more chance.
This study. Was done somewhere in in Europe. And it is a study of 600 women. Were interviewed within five days of giving birth. So they were, this was a retrospective study where they go back and they ask women questions and then they’ll gather the information. And then they see kind of what. What was happening. So they weren’t following along the woman on the pregnancies that didn’t have the facts and the medical records of everything.
It was an analysis of what they remembered and what they said during the interviews, 600 women were interviewed within five days of giving birth.
And 6% of these women, 34 mothers reported using red raspberry leaf during pregnancy. Okay. The most popular reason that they, that they reported using it was to prepare the uterus for labor.
So these 34 women were the only people that used it out of 600 people. And when they were looking at the study for women who used the red raspberry leaf tea, the researchers found that there was a higher rate of C-sections compared to the women who did not use the tea. The rate of C-section was actually 24% versus 9%. Which is definitely a significant jump.
The author of this study did speculate that since the use of red raspberry leaf tea is to strengthen and tone the uterus pregnancy, that perhaps the type of woman who used it could have already been predisposed to an increased risk of C-section to begin with. However this is speculation and more research needed to be done to really understand why this one study has given these specific results.
Final Thoughts and Recommendations
We can all say that there is no right or wrong answer yet. The thing about red raspberry leaf tea. Is that it hasn’t been studied in depth enough. To really give us an opinion, really give us an idea of what is the correct following the step way. And we, we, we tend to be a very logical nation.
We want, we want the, this. Step one, step two, step three. And the results need to be given, right. This results driven society.
And with our doctors telling us one thing and our friends telling us another thing, and we go online and we have 400 other things it’s really difficult to make an informed decision on something that doesn’t have concrete facts, definite black and white, yes or no’s around it.
But hopefully what you can see here is that the T itself could and could not have an effect and that your choice in drinking it should be more than just so-and-so said her labor was easier because she drank it.
Because there are so many factors involved, so many different things that could happen that could increase or decrease your chances of good, bad, negative, positive, all of these different things.
And so if you choose to drink it. Drink it for the reasons that it possibly provides you with good nutrition. It possibly could shorten your labor by those 10 minutes. It could possibly reduce your chance for needing interventions. And it perhaps could reduce your chance for C-section, although we’re not a hundred percent sure.
If you have gestational diabetes and you do start using it. I’d love to hear if it happened effects on your blood sugars. And yeah.
And if you decide that this is too wishy washy and you don’t want to drink it. It’s perfectly good to not drink it as well and make an informed decision and say, you know what? The research isn’t backing it. Why should I add another thing to want to do list when I’ve got so many things? So many things to do now, as well for worry about making this tea and drinking this tea.
And actually, I don’t like the way it tastes a lot of people don’t.
I do want to note that for the moms that want to take it from nutritional benefits. It is important that you brew it correctly. Okay. Because it’s not like a teabag where you put your black tea and you stir it for two minutes and then you drink it. You really want to get the nutrients out of it?
You’ve got to brew it for like, I think they say a good four hours ideally overnight to really make it have an effect and really get those nutrients out. So if that’s the reason you’re doing it, make sure you’re doing it correctly.
Postpartum Benefits and Recovery Program
And then I do want to note that your shouldn’t stop drinking the tea the moment you give birth because it has many benefits for postpartum as well. All of these things, the soothing of your digestive tracts, the contractions to help with after birth contractions, the nutrition that decrease in blood loss and hemorrhaging, All of these things are extremely useful postpartum as well.
And if you are really drinking it, if you have already had a new routine, try and include it as a postpartum tea tea to help nourish your body during that special time.
If you don’t know, really, this is a good time for me to mention. I do have a postpartum recovery program available online. That is an 8 week Postpartum program for recovery and healing your body from birth from pregnancy and getting you to a space where you’re not feeling painful getting up off the couch or where you don’t think it’s normal to pee just because you’re a mom now, and then you laugh and then you pee.
Just helping you with those aches and pains. So you can click here if you are interested, if you’re reading this at the time that you’re starting to think about your postpartum recovery.
And yeah, if you want to let me know that you are drinking yet or not drinking yet, I’d love to hear your feedback on. What your decision is on this red raspberry leaf tea, or if you have any other information that I haven’t managed to find.
Conclusion and Upcoming Topics
This is an interesting topic and I think there’s so much more to discuss. I will be doing one on another popularity tea called NORA.
So check back. To see if that one’s been released when it is released, I’ll put a link in the show notes as well. Because the Nora tea is another pregnancy tea that is just fascinating and has so much else. So much else added to it. So I’ll be doing a little bit of a podcast on that coming soon as well.
I hope you have a happy pregnancy, have a happy day.
Thank you so much for joining in to The Mama’s Journey podcast with me, your host, Ashleigh.
References:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1544352/https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780323358682/integrative-medicinehttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7871383/https://doi.org/10.1016%2FS0140-6736(00)71348-1 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12026546 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11370690 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27824754 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1744388110000745?via%3Dihub.