A Mother's Garden of Galactagogues

You can grow milk-boosting herbs and foods in your home or yard. The author of Mother Food, Holistic Lactation Consultant Hilary Jacobson, explains how these plants are used to support milk production, but also to prepare the uterus for childbirth, speed recovery, hasten the arrival of the milk after childbirth and support milk production long term. They are traditionally used to treat diaper rash, prevent UTIs, and soothe varicose veins.

To grow galactagogues in containers, on windowsills, shelves, and kitchen counters, a little know-how is needed. Jacobson encourages starting small-sprouting seeds or growing microgreens in your home. Growing plants outdoors in containers on a balcony or porch, or having a patch of the yard reserved for herbs, and even dandelions, allows you to grow galactagogues and enjoy fresh, nourishing food.

When Jacobson experienced how her milk supply increased, dramatically, when eating garden-fresh plants, her fascination with "living medicine" was born. She learned that over hundreds of thousands of years, humans have had an intimate and intuitive relationship with the living medicine of plants. Stone-Age women identified plants that support milk production-and these same plants grow in our gardens, meadows, and fields today. Living medicine is the gift of nature for us all.

Milk production works the same way in women the world over. Women the world over use much the same plants to support their milk supply: whether in South-, Middle- or North America, Africa, Europe, or Asia, the plants and foods that women use are largely the same.

Western culture has embraced a medical paradigm that separates humans from our living food traditions. Studies show that many common health problems improve with a change in diet. Jacobson proposes that hospitals and birthing clinics, by providing lactogenic meals and beverages to women after childbirth, would see a reduction in many health challenges that women experience after childbirth, while also launching milk production more smoothly and successfully.