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Articles by Ysha Bu

Rumi’s Invitation

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That lives in Us

If you put your hands on this oar with me,
they will never  harm another, and they will come to find
they hold everything you want.

If you put your hands on this oar with me, they would no longer
lift anything to your mouth that might wound your precious land–
that sacred earth that is
your body.

If you put your soul against this oar with me,
the power that made the universe will enter your sinew
from a source not outside your limbs, but from a holy realm
that lives in us.

Exuberant is existence, time a husk.
When the moment cracks open, ecstasy leaps out and devours space;
love goes mad with the blessings, like my words give.

Why lay ourself on the torturer’s rack of the past and future?
The mind that tries to shape tomorrow beyond its capacities
will find no rest.

Be kind to yourself, dear–to our innocent follies.
Forget any sounds or touch you knew that did not help you dance.
You will come to see that all evolves us.

If you put your heart against the earth with me, in serving
every creature, our Beloved will enter you from our sacred realm
and we will be, we will be
so happy.

Today I opened my book of poetry, such a beautiful gift from my recent postpartum client … (November 23, 2014)
Love Poems from God — Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West, translated by Daniel Ladinsky (Penguin Books, 2002).
This one is by Rumi.

I know you are already rowing with me.
Thank you.

Ysha Bu

Balancing Hormones and Cortisol

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pp Stressed or Rest?The stress hormone, cortisol, is Ma Nature’s way of taking care of Baby, no matter what, and research shows it runs high for about 10 days after birth. Natural? Yes. So let it be? Please, no! Once good support is in place, cortisol levels naturally come down before 10 days, and mothers do most of their mothering best with low stress. In fact, stress hormones generally work opposite of the love and nurturing hormones.

What’s best for rest?

Recently, a client had trouble sitting down when I first arrived for her postpartum care; in fact she wanted to help me or serve me something.  I told her I would need a few minutes to set up, to please enjoy her few minutes – just sit and relax with her visiting mom, and then I’d come sit and talk for a few minutes with them. Baby was sleeping nearby.  This dear mama could not get herself to sit.  I knew then we had some unwinding to do.  I often remind mothers they are in training — to take rest in the betweens and be nurtured when they can! 

It took several days actually, before she fell asleep during her nap.  This woman was high risk for postpartum depression (PPD), having been on antidepressants until a few months before conceiving.  Yet as many of you have witnessed, even on the first day of cooking and massage the stress started to melt from her face and emotions. The willpower she so barely could hold together at first – even her speech was broken – turned into trust and surrender into her own nature, layer by layer over those few days of care.  At first it was unconscious, and gradually she came to understand.  

** When our clients have been through a rough surgery or baby has been in the hospital for extra needs, we can really see cortisol in action. It will both support them, and create problems. You will see mothers not realizing where this energy is coming from, and assuming they have more to draw on than they can sustain, making choices to do too much too soon.  Cortisol is why Mama seems so strong – able to go without sleep, walk down the hall after a birth which damaged her tush, go back and forth to the hospital if baby is in NICU instead of napping, and generally have unbelieveable resources. It is also a big reason why she gets hot flashes, why everyone thinks she doesn’t need much help, and why a few days later, there is such a crash. Multiple physical and emotional challenges tend to come up as a result … do I have stories to tell you!  

Where do those resources come from? Cortisol mobilizes blood sugar and adrenal strength, and puts rest and digest on the back burner. That means ability to regenerate is not the priority, nor is milk production, or even the love hormones like oxytocin, so important for bonding. Depletion of resources means mama needs rejuvenation therapies. High stress as a hormonal experience can often be avoided or mitigated in a ‘normal’ birth. When stress is unavoidable due to crisis, there are many stress reducing choices she can make to help recovery. What makes it not so plain and simple is limited understanding of the impact of choices. 

What are those choices? Food, rest and touch play a big role here. Be ready to support them with extra attention to rest and therapies which gently, repetitively remind the body-mind what rest feels like! That’s different from saying, go nap while baby naps. Sometimes that reminder is enough, but too often, it is not. Vata/pitta or pitta/vata moms may not actually know what true rest is by nature. So, they’ll often need to be reminded. In fact, repeatedly, in various ways is the truth of it and the nature of the vata component.

So, just in case you don’t know (or have forgotten), rest has these qualities: it’s warm, cozy, protected, simple, and quiet. Foods that feed and support rest are oily and nourishing especially with sweet taste and easily digested carbs and proteins. Repetitive, oily, simple, loving touch which is matter of fact and steady, and not talkative is best for rest.  

Ayurvedic medicine advises 42 days of specialized massage for mama along with specific dietary measures to strengthen and rejuvenate mom and babe. And yes, we Ayurvedic types have a sanskrit word for this: it’s called “vata” reduction and “brimhana chikitsa.” Because exercise is contraindicated, ayurvedic massage also does some of the work of moving lymph and toning the tissues — and hormones. Warm oil massage increases body chemicals we like called neurotransmitters.. And the classic postpartum diet, which stabilizes, grounds, gives ready energy and long lasting fuel for easy rebuilding and emotional comforting all bring down cortisol too. It is a big reason Ayurvedic therapies work so well — they bring down cortisol — even though there’s no Sanskrit word for that.

12 Factors for Baby’s Development

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Ayurveda defines 12 factors contributing to the quality of baby’s development. Visualize if you can, how nutrition can influence all these 12 factors:

1) Paternal influence

2) Maternal influence

3) Soul/ past life karmas (aatmaja)

4) Agni – Tejas (physical and mental digestive strength)

5) Soma – Ojas quality (immunity strength)

6) Vayu – Prana (vitality — life force strength)

7) The 3 mental Gunas – Sattva, Rajas & Tamas and their influence on mood and character

8) The 5 senses (strength of vision, hearing, smell, touch and taste)

9) The Mind – (stability and strength of focus)

10) The Buddhi (intellect or intelligence)

11) Smruti (memory and ability to retain and recall)

12) the 5 elements (the quantity of earth, water, fire, air and ether in a person’s constitution)

In a nutshell, shukra (sperm) and artava (egg) contain the maternal & paternal elements of heredity. These include components of the: 5 elements, 20 qualities of nature, 3 mental gunas (SRT), three doshas (VPK), 7 dhatus (tissues), and refined essence of the three doshas (ojas, tejas and prana–OTP), all of which shape the embryo  and are known as “basic units of hereditary.”

Within the first 2 weeks of pregnancy, the placenta is working, giving oxygen and life force to the baby. The prana taken in by the mother must be refined and delicate, not intense or jarring. Rasa dhatu (plasma) should be sattvic for this intricate process which means it needs to be clear of ama (toxins) or anything that may obstruct the tiny but critical developments. Pitta toxins and kapha phlegm both morning sickness which blocks the flow of prana. The invisible work of mothers in pregnancy is to provide a supportive harmonious energy field and nourishment for her developing baby’s body and blueprint. Proper nutrition of mind and body (the 12 factors) are what create this environment.

To learn more about the 12 factors for Baby’s development check out the following class:  Enhancing Fertility, Pregnancy and Birth with Ayurveda

 

4 Key Foods Throughout Pregnancy

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rice and dairy

According to Ayurveda, there are 4 key sattvic foods used in varied ways throughout pregnancy for most mamas: new basmati rice, pure ghee, butter and milk. These foods are naturally sattvic (harmonious and pure), building, easy on the digestion when properly used, and do not create mental and emotional negativity in their nature.

For vegan mamas, the list of 4 becomes 1 – just new basmati rice (not aged, and not brown due to the heating quality of brown rices), and these mothers often crave the three dairy options during pregnancy. Whatever foods are actually used, much care must be taken to substitute for these foods with sattvic, pitta and vata pacifying, ojas building qualities of other foods. For example, some common substitutes for dairy include:

Old, processed or life-force weakened foods undermine nutrition, as does slow maternal elimination. The stress of our prevalent Type A/rajasic overdrive in modern cultures will deplete the life-energy and nutrients for mama and baby. Poor digestion or poor food choice can create ama, which can lead to morning sickness and other problems.

Many other foods are important too, of course, but these take a special grounding, pitta and vata balancing, and ojas enhancing role.

 

Panchakarma — Ayurvedic Cleansing for Conception

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hands on back

To prepare for receiving the highest vibration soul and providing the healthiest new body for their baby, the mother and father both to need to calm and balance their doshas, eliminate ama and reduce rajas and tamas in their minds. This manifests as a need to purify body and emotions in some way.

Ayurveda spells out how we can prepare the body and mind for healthy sperm and ova and optimal conception. It’s called Panchakarma and post Panchakarma Rasayana (rejuvenation therapies). This is a fascinating education for practitioners, but you’ll want to attend the Dhatu and Panchakarma advanced classes with Vaidya Bharat (ayurvedsadhana.com) to unfold this juicy understanding.

Although each mother has brilliant natural maps for growing a baby, she and her partner can make choices in preparation for supporting baby’s plan for incarnation, to cleanse and then strengthen the intricate communications between Baby’s DNA and unfolding her subtle body blueprint. Conception calls on mother and father’s reproductive essence in the sperm and ovum, on their consciousness and on their desires, to match baby’s desire and life purposes. The blueprint structures are built to the soul’s purpose and style, and everyone wants this to be in greatest bliss and success for life.

Panchakarma has been proven to significantly, safely and gently remove significant amounts of petrochemical pollutants in a short time. The body stores these in fat, reproductive, brain and endocrine tissues and these are not easily removed by western cleansing methods. The unique methods of cleansing employed by Ayurveda are safe and gentle, but it is very important that it is done properly to prevent side effects; many practitioners are only partially trained.

Rasayana therapies are rebuilding and rejuvenative, perfect for preparing to concieve and the body receives the benefits of rasayana much more effectively after the Panchakarma sequences are complete. Cleansing without rejuvenation afterwards is not a good idea for those wishing to conceive!

Ojas: The Essence of Baby’s Development

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cute white baby

Ancient Ayurvedic texts by Vagbhat describe–in detail–embryonic nourishment at conception and for gestation by the 5 elements. They describe the seat of the soul as a sixth tissue (the nervous system), which is the next to last tissue in the sequence of tissue nutrition in the body. The quality of mind and connectedness to this life are dependent upon the quality of the nervous tissue. Vagbhat explains that ojas – the finest product of maternal and paternal digestion and contained in the reproductive seed material — is the essence of the embryo and fetus, and the first component for baby’s tissue formation, and Ayurvedic teachers explain that stem cells are nourished by ojas.

Nourishing mama’s ojas throughout pregnancy (and postpartum) is a central topic in Ayurveda. The many refinements on healthy digestion and transformation of food that is spelled out in Ayurveda are about creating good quality ojas — because ojas is the finest product of digestion. It is the foundation of good health.

When a mother enters pregnancy with a healthy diet and lifestyle, making the necessary changes to enhance ojas is straight-forward — and she can easily make proactive choices that will help build the best quality body for baby. But when she has pitta or kapha ama (accumulated wastes from incomplete digestion or toxicities in the body), or excessive rajas or tamas in the mind (anger, depression, and so on) these conditions can tend to vibrate at odds with gestational priorities, and undermine the baby’s development.

 

The Best 5 Herbs in the First 10 Days

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Whether you are an Ayurvedic, Chinese or Western herbalist, you may have a few favorite lactation herbs already. There are so many herbs to choose from.

When I ask myself, what are the top herbs for early postnatal use, then ask again, what are the top ones for lactation, my list is often the same, and ginger and pepper are usually at the top. Why? Because we are talking today about the first WEEK after childbirth, when agni is low and vata is high. For lactation, the body’s resources need to be flowing and nourishing, and mother nature does the rest best when she is assisted with certain pungent herbs. Their nutrition-transforming, fast-acting and channel clearing qualities are significant.

“Agni” – our digestive and transformative chemistries, are so important for lactation, happy baby tummies, rejuvenation, strength, mood and feeling light, clear and energized. You will find the postpartum agni needs help to make good use of food. That’s why it’s important to attend to agni first, especially before milk comes in.

Using herbs which are easily accessed in the west, here are my picks. These 5 herbs work like a team to make lactation easy:

  1. Ginger – Enhances digestion and warmth; purifies and clears breast, lymph, respiratory channels and fluids; helps burns toxins/wastes; reduces gas and bloating; lowers vata and kapha; is sattvic–promoting clarity, lightness and purity of mind; and is immune protective.
  2. Pepper – Enhances digestion and warmth; purifies and clears breast channels, lymph, respiratory channels and fluids; burns toxins/wastes; reduces gas and bloating; lowers vata and kapha; strongly immune protective, including antiviral and antiparasitic; special muscle tissue purification, energizing (rajasic).
  3. Garlic – Strong galactagogue; enhances digestion and warmth; purifies and clears lymph, blood, respiratory channels and fluids; burns toxins/wastes; reduces gas, bloating; lowers vata and kapha; strongly immune protective including antibacterial and antiparasitic; energizing (rajasic), grounding (tamasic), strengthening (rajasic); protects the subtle energy field. * Must be well cooked.
  4. Fennel/Anise – Good galactagogue; antiparasitic, digestive, anti-acidic (fennel), moves gas out and shrinks bloating, (gentle deepan and pachan actions); cooling/warming (respectively), gentle anti cough/kapha; anti vata; gently estrogenic; sattvic.
  5. Fenugreek – Good galactagogue, antiparasitic, heals small intestine wall and digestive function; helps loosen retained placental fragments and brings down upper body heat; helpful with fever; gently warming, gentle anti-cough, anti-vata and anti-kapha; sattvic. Not very effective in capsules for many.

Do you see how all these 5 herbs help digestion? Continue with these digestives, adjusting heat level gradually as appropriate, over the next weeks and months postpartum for best results. But please don’t take them in capsules – make teas and season your food with them.

What are the next 5 herbs on your list? 

There are quite a number of herbs which help hormones, digestion and lactation together, and also help keep the body relaxed and warm. When you are creating an herbal formula, think about all of these properties.

If you are thinking that shatavari or borage might be good additions to the list, think carefully. Surprisingly, shatavari – while it is a an awesome galactagogue and female rejuvenative – is not appropriate for the first 9-10 days for most mamas. Both are too heavy and cooling for early postpartum (borage is a refrigerant), and should be avoided. 

If mama is having hot flashes, hot tea using cumin, coriander and fennel is a better choice in the first week or so, with shatavari coming in after agni is strong and channels are working well.

And if you are wanting to put raspberry leaf, nettles, gotu kola or oat straw on your list? You’ll want to add 1 or more of the first 5 from my lactation list, to help balance their cooling, drying, and/or astringent qualities – which are all vata increasing.

Dr. Aviva Romm recently wrote a great blog post called Five Favorite Herbal Medicines for Women you will enjoy. I love that she addresses the western woman’s herb resources. These herbs are not our favorite picks for the first few days after childbirth however, just because we have these needs which are not well understood yet in the west.

If you want to learn more about the Ayurvedic approach to postpartum herbalism, you can take our Safe Postpartum Herbs class.  In this 5 hour lecture series, you will learn how to safely help a mother and newborn with many common issues. There are basic Ayurvedic principles which are not widely known and really complement the western–or Chinese pharmacopeia. I hope you will learn these secrets and practice them.

Why I used an AyuDoula

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After my first born, I didn’t

Birth is so empowering, lifechanging, and I’m deeply grateful Mother Nature and my husband made me a mother, in spite of the fatigue, loss of sleep, mush mind, health issues and the colic that developed for I don’t even remember how long. I loved my baby, loved being able to give birth naturally in spite of the hospital mismanagements and my foolish idea I should walk right after birth, and loved nursing even though I had no idea how to burp my baby at first. I nursed him for 2 1/2 years.

In addition to the side benefits of no more cold hands and feet, I felt like I had been initiated into the family of humankind. My emotions were more true and available. I even discovered how to get my twice daily meditations in – with him falling asleep in my arms. That was probably my saving grace – the deep transcendental dive that was so integrating for all other layers of my being, even when much of the time I was what we call “sleepitating”.

But more than sometimes he didn’t sleep when he needed to and was unhappy, uncomfortable — inconsolable — and we had to do crazy things like walking him in our coastal fog, or taking him for a drive at all hours in the car, hoping he would stay asleep once we got home. I got really good at sliding the complex “Snuggly” off and keeping him asleep, but still spent lots of time in the rocking chair, with lots of tummy issues for us both, and my nipples cracked and bled. I got lucky and learned about good old fashioned sunshine-delivered Vitamin D and they healed. I blamed myself for his discomfort though, figuring I was just not loving or tuned in enough, and spent the time I needed for self care with extra baby care needs. I did get sick. It was all a mixed bag.  It’s probably a familiar story. 

I didn’t have enough presence of mind or knowledge of what help to ask for; my mind was mushy and my health funky for about 2.5 years. My transverse colon fascia didn’t hold when I walked down the hall a few minutes after his birth. That part of my colon suddenly fell 3-4 inches, and stayed mal-positioned adding to other constipation factors for many years. My husband didn’t understand my fragile condition (neither did I) and expected me to be a housewife like I always was. I decided and accepted this was part of the price of having babies which no-one wanted to tell me about. I know that for most mamas, along with the blessings of motherhood, lots of ageing begins during this sacred window.

Ayurvedics know the word “kavaigunya” or weak area, where the doshas will be easily able to settle in and accumulate. We have multiple kavaigunyas after childbirth, which can affect us for many years to come if not addressed early on. Fortunately, Ayurveda also has multiple ways, better than any other system of medicine indigenous, alternative or allopathic, to reverse these things, but advanced practitioners are hereby on the alert to take a good history and understand, these things can go deep at this very open time.

OK – that birth story was 41 years ago. Looking back, I can see some help would have made a different life for us all – even if I just had some understanding, given our low budget at the time — some wise-woman guidance, even something to listen to or read. I would gladly have worn a belly wrap, protecting my abdominal organ position, function, and posture. I would have used the handbook and cookbook so religiously (which is often the way for first-time mamas!) and made the simple, inexpensive herbal teas for his comfort and mine – tummy, mood and rejuvenation. Avoiding salad and pinto beans alone would have made a big difference on our comfort! Insights for diet and lifestyle nourish hormones, mind and mood, and my relationship with my husband would have been so much better if we both had understood my short term needs (those first 6 weeks), for years to come.

So this is hindsight, like I said, with acceptance and gratitude for what was, and why I finally began to ask for help with my second and third babies. That was the mid 1970s. I was called to the AyuDoula work for myself as a mother, and then as a profession, after my third live birth in 1987. Ayurvedic postnatal care began to shine its gifts on the west thanks to the blessings of an enlightened monk, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, when two of his student’s (medical doctors, running the Ayurvedic clinic at the time) were both expecting their first babies. (Ok, their wives were expecting). The thrill that ran through the grapevine as mothers began to experience it was full of a bright light of right-for-so-many. I knew I wanted it.

That’s just part of why I’ve dedicated my life to this work. With the Baby’s Best Beginnings program, I could have done a lot for myself, and I know we would have managed somehow to get a little direct guidance or hands on help. We would have known how to ask our community for help. I would have known how to prevent and reverse the colic – that is big! and have a much brighter consciousness and more loving support for my husband those years. He needed it too, and his health and patience wore thin. That too is very big.

Our lives would have been so different – whether this guidance and help had came from an AyuDoula, girlfriend, or doctor. Yes, there is karma. And there is choice on what level we experience it, and the healing and health care profession is dedicated to helping our safe experience and opportunity to live and grow in love and good health while we pay off our karmas and blossom on our paths to self realization.

If you want to help mothers and babies who want to help make this world a happier place starting with the beginning of life, you can start learning at the very low prices we offer for our webinars.

Enjoy, and wishing you many insights, many blessings on this journey.

 

 

Mama’s Herbs and Manas Herbs

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The “It depends” Rule

A big, “it depends” rule in Ayurveda and “Terrain” medicine makes teaming up with an advanced practitioner, or learning advanced use of herbs especially important for mothers with complications.  The same thing is true for all of us as we move through the seasons of our lives. Purple tulsi plant An herb may be right for a particular condition in spring, yet not suit us in winter.  It may be right for a woman in her menopause years, but ill-advised for postpartum hormonal imbalances.  Even the benefic Holy Basil has its limits.  Being a heating herb, some pittas can’t handle much of it. I am inspired today to talk about choices in the springtime.

Manas Herbs

Help for mind and mood

Manas means mind in Sanskrit.  Ayurveda’s use of liver and blood supportive herbs in this season help to balance the mind by giving clarity to channels and tissues that affect the mind. Liver herbs can even help build neuro-transmitters, cleanse receptor sites for them, and build ojas, the quintessential finest product of digestion and source of immune strength. Tulsi, or Holy Basil (the purple variety is pictured above) is a manas (mind and mood supportive) herb which suits the Spring season more than most. It is different from most manas herbs, which are often heavier to digest, more tonic and less clarifying, and therefore better for summer or winter use. Instead, tulsi is lighter and somewhat heating, so it helps to clear spring allergies as a respiratory-specific herb, fights cough, cold, flu, bacteria, fungi and parasites–gently but with power–and is ama (toxin) reducing. Like the other basils, Tulsi not only supports milk production, but also increases body warmth without harsh heat, and improves digestion – all of these postpartum needs.  Because it is slightly bitter, tulsi should not be used during pregnancy, unless it is used very carefully. Tulsi is anti-stress, and an adaptogen with special serotonin enhancing and sattvic gifts for mama and baby — qualities which naturally improve the mood and sense of well-being.  Tulsi is less heavy to digest than many of the manas herbs, which makes it more helpful when kapha is high in the early springtime. The herb part used is usually the leaf.  White or black tulsi beads are often worn to strengthen devotion and sattva as well. Personified in Vedic tradition, Tulsi has a very benefic feminine energy and is thought to have divine powers which provide spiritual protection.  Whenever you take a herb that is rich in divine intelligence, like tulsi,  it can help to remove vibrational blocks in your system and strengthen your auric field. Mothers and newborns are in a state of tremendous openness, physically and energetically. Often they have been around negative energies or hospital environments where – many things go on and can create complications on this level too. It is important to protect them at this time, and Tulsi can be a lovely friend indeed. During kapha season look to safe postpartum blood and liver cleansing herbs.  Choose ones whose impact on vata is not going to create more vata. Remember that in a new mom, vata is already pushing the other existing doshic and mental issues out of balance and you don’t want add to it by recommending an inappropriate herbal combination. Appropriate herbs may include guduchi, bringaraj, anantamool, and turmeric, with warming balance from such herbs as pippali or ginger.

Mamas’ Postpartum Herbs

Choose safe herbs for the “season”

It is kapha season in the northern hemisphere, and both mind and respiratory system are more easily mushy.  Allergies and mucous are more common.  After giving birth, our minds are naturally mushy anyway.   Astrologically, the planet governing mind –  Mercury – goes into an influence of “debilitation” each spring.  The time frame is today until April 20th!   No wonder it has taken me so long to write this.

Spring brings many joys, the earth moves, and water flows…

Just like snow melting and sap starting to flow externally,  new growth is facilitated in Spring. But slush is messy, and pollen season troubles many.   Kapha is earth and water, and earth is moved by water, fire (sun) and air (wind) elements.  Things come out and grow in the sun, and also have to deal with water’s runny nature.  Internally, ama (accumulated impurities and excesses in the body) also starts to melt. As the water flows in our body, excess kapha easily shows up as more mucous if the channels are not clear. The mind gets mushier too. It’s natural, because the channels in our mind and body got restricted during winter’s cold. Heat helps to thaw accumuluated kapha and also relax the channels and increase the flow, but herbal and dietary attentions often are needed to help loosen and eliminate these accumulations.

Choosing herbs

The needs of kapha are different in springtime than in the winter or summer, and require more pungent, bitter and astringent tastes.  For many this is a time of spring cleansing, and purification, when lightness and warmth is called for. As always when choosing herbs, keep in mind the constitution of the person, her condition and needs, and even the planetary influences she may be facing. For example, choosing herbs to heal a “debilitating” planetary influence is different from strengthening a “weak” planet. Sometimes a person may need a palliative approach during Spring, which combines the cleansing qualities of anti-kapha herbs, the nourishing and tonic qualities of anti-vata herbs, and the cooling qualities of anti-pitta herbs. A new mom and her family, may be best supported by bringing the mind back to sattva (peace/harmony) by supporting healthy sadhaka pitta (neurotransmitters) and its mind-heart connection, while calming the high vata in her body and the eliminating the excess kapha brought on by seasonal changes.

Cleansing as a risky concept for postpartum

Even though the maternal body has cleansing to do, most cleansing therapies and herbs generally create depletion. In particular, pungent and bitter herbs are cleansing , and after childbirth, depletion therapy becomes a risky approach. Ojas supportive Guduchi (pictured above) is at the top of my list, along with Tulsi. Guduchi, gently but powerfully helps detox from allopathic medicines and is generally good for all three doshas (tridoshic) with pitta reducing qualities. Holy Basil or Tulsi, is healing, purifying, and gently cleansing.  Goksuradi Guggulu also stands out for postpartum use,  with its deep cleansing effects on the water element. The pungent herbs used in Panchakola * Ghee, used regularly in early postpartum,  are all deepan and pachan – strengthening digestive and metabolic fires and burning toxins.   This herbalized ghee will usually be better than plain ghee for mamas at this time, and is well alternated with sesame oil in food.

Life and Learning in Layers

Being able to apply Ayurvedic wisdom to a specific situation is important.  This is a skill learned in layers.  This includes understanding many explainable and unexplained, but identifiable properties of foods and herbs.  It also includes how they are administered.  Many factors change the value of an herb, including for whom, in what format, and in what season or phase of life it is used.

The Season of Growth

Just like in springtime when everything comes alive and grows so fast, mothers as well as babies need building therapy as an underlying modus operandus! Mom needs to be strong and abundant for baby. And she does have special cleansing needs. Mama and baby need gentle but effective bitter and pungent tastes, yet less of the astringent and bitter, while gaining needed benefits.  All three tastes increase air element, dryness, and they may warm or cool but all tend to be catabolic (depleting), not anabolic (building). In conditions of higher kapha – damp cool or warm – and in climate, season or bodily condition (prakruti and vikruti), choose herbs and foods which are less heavy and clogging, whether plant or animal based. This means, even though the general postpartum rules still apply of more fats, milk, sweet, carb, digestible, sattvic and building influences, always practice discernment.  Ayurveda identifies which of these are best used for foods, when, and how to prepare them. It identifies which are the best delivery methods for best results and preventing complications. Understanding the specific properties helps us chose effectively. By example, in this season we can lean more on sesame oil and use less ghee.  In hot milk tonics, cook turmeric, or anantamool into the recipe and include black pepper.  In sweets, favor more spices in hot stewed fruits, adding apple after first 2 weeks. Put extra black pepper and ginger into the mother’s halva (Sheero) or spice puddings with extra ginger, cinnamon and bay leaf. All of these tips give the cook a palette and inspiration to work with, but also listen to what you are sensing, feeling, and knowing, instead of working just by recipe.  There are general principles which serve all mamas. Layer into this the skills of a more advanced practitioner when needed, to assess and choose for special needs. Speaking of needs! For so many mothers, babies and families, these skills are deeply needed. Will you join us in this work?  Here are two this weekend!

Big Elephant Herb for Maternal Health…

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This featured herb for maternal care punctures tires, yet makes the urinary channels feel like silk!

Tribulus terrestris is one of the most important herbs in Ayurvedic medicine. This “noxious weed” in the US is called Goat’s Beard or Puncture Vine.  Ayurveda calls it Gokshura.  It offers the  practitioner many uses in maternal healthcare, and though found all over the southwest US, it is seems little known in western herbalism. Perhaps because this hard, multi-sided sharp thorny seed (actually a fruit) easily punctures shoes and bike tires?gokshura triptik

I was looking through my notes recently for perinatal and infant health content.  So much to digest and use, so many little known abundantly growing herbs!  T. terrestris rightfully makes many south-westerners give up their off-road bicycle habit, but when ground it makes the urinary system – and more – very happy.

For pregnancy and postpartum food and medicines, the gokharu (gokshura fruit) was one of the staple herbs in village use. It can be given within the first 10 days after childbirth with guduchi for abnormal postpartum discharge in addition to its applications with the common issues of swellings, burning urine, and rejuvenation. It is an aphrodisiac (rasayana i.e. rejuvenative tonic), helps in conception, preventing miscarriage, certain vaginal disorders, impotency, and shows some effects similar to ashwagandha with animal research. Many other applications below are noted for your interest.

A favorite support best known for kidney function among Ayurvedic students, as herbalists, we often study its gentle effectiveness.

For just this herb, we received many pages of information. Here’s a few tidbits (OK, more than a few):

  1. Certain types of lactation problems respond very well to a preparation of gokshura with guggulu (gokshuradi guggalu), to remove poor water element management from waste products in the lymph/lactation ducts.
  2. Gokshura was used in a nutritious sweet for both men and women for rejuvenation. (The sweet component is important to it’s effectiveness for rejuvenative purposes).
  3. The saponin fraction from Gokshura was demonstrated to exhibit a hypoglycemic effect in alloxan-diabetic rats, with a commensurate reduction in serum triglycerides and cholesterol, and a rise in serum super oxide dismutase (Li et al 2002). Vitiation in triglicerides = tired pancreas.
  4. The poor people in India used to make a vegetable dish out of Gokshura leaves (though its use is being forgotten).
  5. The powder from its fruits used to be mixed with other flours to make traditional Indian bread – at least one teaspoon and up to 25% in small batch helps to reduce urinary problems in elders maybe 7-10%. I now add the powder into a flat bread/chapatti, after learning this is standard preventive fare among many village elders. I’m 64 – perhaps one of your village elders.
  6. An infusion is used to relieve painful micturation, to increase the flow of urine and as a vehicle for diuretic medicines. Used also in incontinence of urine.
  7. It can reduce allopathic dosages needed in certain cases. You will have to ask those questions of the doctor directly, he gave one example in the lecture and we asked about many other things!
  8. With black sesame seeds, helps reduce bad energies- circle the person with mix in a bowl, and throw into fire. (Or burn leaves of flax, or keep a bowl of the flax seeds nearby the fragile – helpful for babies, new mamas, the hospitalized, and others. Our unit on Flax brought many new applications for that plant also!)
  9. With Aam Vata (reheumatoid arthritis) – a decoction with ginger and gokshura is used.
  10. With ascites and piles.  The association of water element managements in the body is related to the reproductive system and emotions around the 2nd chakra, some lactation issues, pancreatic function and a cascade of concerns.
  11. It may help with cough and asthma, alone or mixed with honey as soothing expectorant.
  12. It has analgesic effect;  may help with pain from neural debility.
  13. In Paralysis, the preparation called gokshuradi guggulu is particularly good.
  14. Helps dissolve urinary stones an cystitis. Fresh leaves dipped in water can be drank for medicine, as it creates slipperiness to help release. This remedy is also being forgotten in Ayurvedic practice.

Properties of Gokshura

  • Guna (qualities): Guru (heavy), Snigdha (slimy)
  • Rasa (taste): Madhur (sweet)
  • Virya (energy): Sheeta (cooling)
  • Vipak (post digestive effect): Madhur (sweet)
  • Very good rasayan

Effects on body channels

  • Dosha: Tridoshshamak (cleanses all 3 doshas)
  • Dhatus (tissues affected): Shukra, Mamsa, Meda, Rakta (reproductive, muscle, fat, and blood)
  • Mala: Mutra (waste system affected: urinary)
  • Organs: Urinary system, Cardiac system, Reproductive system, Nervous System
  • Dosage: Fruit powder – 2.5 to 5 gm, Decoction – 60 to 100 ml
  • Contraindication:  Should not be given if patient is suffering from dehydration.

Topics for each herb in the Nighantu class include – an herb’s names and citations throughout the ancient texts; when it began to be used; traditional village dietary and medicinal recipes; which Ayurvedic text says what about it, pharmacokinetics; all useful parts of the plant; effect on metabolism in Ayurvedic and allopathic terms with therapeutic uses and recipes; chemical constituents, uses for each of the shrotamsi (channels) and body systems; herb drug interactions; research on it; growing conditions; varietals; and any contraindications.

As with all information provided, please understand this is partial information. Proper use of herbals per the individual case and condition as well as proper combining, timing, and delivery media are all part of herbal training, and very important. This is not meant to replace the advice of a qualified physician nor prerequisite studies in Ayurvedic medicine.