Raspberry leaf tea

[Cnmorgan13]

37 weeks pregnant with my first. I have heard about the tea, does it make you start labour early or is it to make labour shorter? I just bought some today and it's lovely

I took it with my daughter from 37 weeks I went 12 days over and had a 15 hour labour so for me no

Herbs, such as raspberry leaf tea, have side effects and contraindications, for example it shouldn't be taken if you have high blood pressure in pregnancy and if taken in excess may be problematic and cause very strong contractions which may have an adverse effect on you and baby.

Denise Tiran from Expectancy is a leading authority in this area, check out this leaflet - don't just assume because its a herb its not powerful stuff:

expectancy.co.uk/files/shop/downloads/7/Raspberry_leaf_tea_leaflet_revised_2015.pdf

There is some limited evidence that it shortens labour, but no evidence that it brings it on.

It does taste nice though so little harm in it!

I'll have a good read at that. I've had the most boring pregnancy (medically related) so I should be fine, but I'll double check with the midwife as well

Good luck with everything Cnmorgan13

The tablet form is best as I read somewhere that you'd have to drink loads of tea for it to have any effect. I took the tablets from 36 weeks and I had a 5 an half hour labour

I drank raspberry leaf tea and went into labour on my due date and it was a quick one .

I drank the tea for weeks, moved on to tablets once near due date. I went 12 days over, had to be induced. However it doesn't do any harm as the teas are pretty inexpensive, so if you want to give it a bash, why not.

Every midwife I saw said the only thing that medically is proven to work is sex! Curry, bouncy ball, raspberry leaf, evening primrose oil, pineapple... All just activities to try and make you feel a bit less helpless IMO. (Yes I did them all!!)

I heard that you'd have to eat 6 pineapples for it to have an effect... I recon I could do that

I drank three cups a day from around 34 weeks, went into labour four days past my due date, DD arrived in just over five hours.