I’ve written before on the highly effective use of fertility herbs in women. I myself used herbs to encourage fertility with my first pregnancy as my husband and I did not attempt to start a family until I was well into my 30’s.
Once we discovered the wonders of Traditional Diet, however, I no longer needed any herbal assistance with later pregnancies. Herbs are also highly effective at dampening fertility in order to naturally and safely prevent pregnancy. When would such use of natural birth control be beneficial?
For one, herbal birth control would be helpful to use between pregnancies in order to space children 3-4 years apart. This allows Mom to adequately replenish her nutritional stores so that later children are just as healthy, smart and capable as the first. Spacing children a minimum of 3 years apart (birthday to birthday) was rigorously practiced in ancestral cultures. It preserves Mom’s health and prevents exhaustion and nutritional deficiency for her too.
Natural methods of birth control are always preferable to chemically based agents such as spermicides, contraceptive patches, and IUDs which emit synthetic hormones, or the contraceptive pill which decimates the balance of gut flora and can lead to autoimmune disease in the mother and any children born later.
Even IUDs that emit only copper instead of hormones to prevent pregnancy should be avoided as copper toxicity is a very real and dangerous side effect of using these devices.  According to Theresa Vernon, LAc author of the article Metals and the Mind:
If adrenal function becomes impaired, the copper builds up in the liver, brain, joints, and lungs. When this happens, you see very specific problems, including mental problems, liver problems, and detoxification problems. Phase II liver impairment is often made worse by copper toxicity, if not actually caused by it.
You also see a lot of copper toxicity with asthma and breathing problems, including emphysema. Copper also tends to build up in the joints, leading to arthritis. Chronic skin problems are also an indication of copper toxicity.
Low adrenal function is an epidemic in our modern society. Â If you doubt this, just walk into any convenience store and notice the enormous display of energy shots and drinks that are available for sale. Not to mention that a Starbucks or other coffee shop is virtually on every corner of most major cities. Americans have serious adrenal health problems. As a result, many are addicted to caffeine and sugar as a way to make it through the day. This makes any excess copper in the system a huge health problem!
Artificial contraception may be tempting in the short term. However, it is clearly not a great idea if preserving your long term hormone and gut health is important to you.
Herbs for Natural Birth Control
The use of anti-fertility herbs along with a simple barrier method such as the female or male condom that is not treated with chemicals (such as natural lambskin) works very effectively for preventing pregnancy. Â This option is especially attractive for health-conscious women who are not particularly turned on by the thought of charting their cycles, taking their basal metabolic temperature every morning, checking the stretchiness of their vaginal secretions and practicing selective abstinence a la Natural Family Planning which for some ladies over analyzes and saps the spontaneity out of what should be a very natural, uncomplicated and enjoyable event.
So if herbal birth control appeals to you, here are the different types and how they work as outlined in the very helpful book Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year. Â Please note that if sourcing your own herbs is new to you, a well-respected herbalist or acupuncturist in your area can put together a bag of herbs to assist you with natural birth control for an extremely reasonable cost. Â These professionally sourced herbs mixed in the proper proportions can then be used to prepare a cold or a hot herbal infusion that you drink periodically to keep fertility in check and under your control.
Sterility Promoting Herbs
Stoneseed Root. Â Women of the Dakota Indian tribes used this extremely powerful herb as a root infusion steeped in cold water for several hours. Â They then drank a cup every day for 6 months. The Dakota women also practiced breathing in the smoke of the plant as it burned to induce permanent sterility.
The Shoshone tribes concentrated in Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and Montana also used this root for permanent sterility purposes.
Jack in the Pulpit Root. Â This root is less powerful than stoneseed root and is prepared by mixing one tsp of the dried powdered root in a half cup of cold water. Â The liquid is then strained and was consumed by women of the Hopi Tribe. Â Â Conception was prevented for one week by doing this.
Thistles. Â The Quinault Indians used thistles to induce temporary sterility by placing the entire plant in boiling water. Â The very bitter, strong tasting liquid was then consumed.
Herbs that Prevent Pregnancy
Wild Carrot Seed (Queen Anne’s Lace). Â This oily and strong tasting but not unpleasant herb is particularly useful if an “oops” occurs and unprotected relations take place during the fertile time. One teaspoon of carrot seeds is taken immediately and continued each day for another 7 days.
The women of Rajasthan, India use carrot seed for this exact purpose. While wild carrot seed is not commercially available, cultivated carrot seeds can be substituted but be sure to check that they haven’t been treated with chemicals or other toxic substances.
Research in mice has proven the effectiveness of carrot seed to prevent implantation.
Smartweed Leaves. Â A common weed that grows all over the world, smartweed contains rutin, quercetin, and gallic acid. All of these substances interfere with the initiation of pregnancy.
An infusion of one ounce of dried leaves (or 4 ounces of fresh leaves) in a quart of boiling water is consumed liberally until menstruation begins.
Like carrot seed, smartweed may also be used after relations occur on fertile days or to bring on menstruation if the period is late.
Rutin.  This phenolic compound can be purchased in tablet form. A minimum of 500 mg should be taken daily for several days before and following ovulation. Another option is to consume rutin after sexual relations and continue each day until menstruation begins.
Herbs Which Initiate Menstruation
Ginger root. Â Ginger is perhaps the fastest acting menstruation initiating herb you can use. Put 1 tsp of powdered organic ginger root into a cup and pour boiling water over it. Drink when the water cools to a temperature which is still hot but comfortable. Drink up to 4 cups per day for no more than 5 days.
Vitamin C. While plain ascorbic acid is not the natural form of Vitamin C, it can be used therapeutically on occasion to bring on menstruation if necessary. Take 500 mg every hour for 12 hours each day for up to 6 days maximum. The use of ascorbic acid in this high dosage may also produce loose bowels as a side effect.
Weird article- take herbs to destroy a perfectly healthy condition- fertility?? NFP is easy with The Ovulation Method and no, you do not have to test the stretchy-ness of your cervical mucus. Abstaining from sex a few days a month is no big deal if you are postponing pregnancy with NFP. You don’t have to abstain from hand holding, talking, foot massages, going out to dinner- everything that will make sex after the fertile time passes great! That’s why they say people who use NFP have a honeymoon every month! 🙂 They also statistically have sex more often than contracepting couples.
The Couple to Couple League has lots printed material and books for those of you who are interested in Natural Family Planning: http://www.ccli.org/ This is the safest form of control over your body without having to ingest anything. And it promotes a stronger relationship between couples because the husband has to understand what is happening with the wife’s body. I am really sorry to all the men who get forgotten in the picture when they contribute sperm to the creation of life– are we that selfish as women that we think creation begins and ends with us and our bodies? Hardly. I hope my son marries a woman who wants to be a partner in life and in deciding about their family… not someone who leaves pregnancy up to chance by taking herbs or drugs (which by the way did not work for me and I have two kids to prove it!). I have many friends who’ve used NFP (one actually works for the CCL) and it is the healthiest way to go and they have the strongest marriages.
I have no desire to enter into an abortion debate.
But I do want to urge you to add more information to your original article. Herbs are potent…that’s one reason we like them. When you discuss ways to use herbs to interfere with a positive control mechanism, it would be wise to add a few other things, such as symptoms to look for that would indicate a need for medical assistance (hemorrhage, ovarian pain, sepsis, etc) and also what to do if the herbs are not successful. You might also want to add a medical disclaimer, as if the herbs don’t successfully kill the human before implantation, congenital defects or other complications that result could make things messy for everyone involved.
This was something I’ve had to learn about herbology discussion in general. People like to try things out and they like to pop things into their mouths. I ran into some discussions where people were actually destroying their gut w/ OLE, for example.
Anyways, please just consider adding more context to the article and stressing the importance of being informed or of seeking guidance from an informed herbalist. Herbs are potent…that’s what I tend to repeat over and over to people who ask for info.
I agree with you, and to say that’s an overreaction is to dismiss our history of traditional medicine as impotent as some would say traditional food is for building health. It is hard on a woman to suddenly not be pregnant, no matter the chosen intervention. (It is hard on the body even when completely spontaneous!) To not offer any suggestion for post pregnancy care is not health promoting. Do we not gather around the table to both eat a delicious meal but to gain the long term benefits of nutrition from that meal? That is healthful and holistic eating. Let’s address the woman’s physical, emotional and spriritual state after the pregnancy is ended (or mensturation is initiated) – that is healthful and holistic care. A woman needs all the information, including risks and side effects, of a process to truly make an informed decision.
Agreed. Thie information as offered in the post above is not complete.
Absolutely! As a student of homeopathy, I see how many symptoms are overlooked by the regular medical profession already and then to think of people treating themselves with substances causing that much change, is really taking a risk for your health in general. I would only advise doing anything this drastic with someone who is a professional.
Thank you for your reply as it said exactly what I was thinking, only better!
My concern would be for a woman to read only this article without being completely informed of what’s going on. However Sarah does say to go to an herbalist AND it’s an article online and I would think that anyone serious enough to search out jack pulpit stuff is likely to do their research. 🙂
My goodness, this got heated fast; but i think it does Sarah credit that she left three comments up, although they contain many differing opinions.
Look into the Lady Comp. I love mine!!! (It’s a little “computer” that does the NFP calculations for you.)
Look into the Lady Comp. I love mine!!! (It’s a little “computer” that does the NFP calculations for you.)
or, i should say “the often do”, not just “they can”.
Ovulation predictors aren’t a good bet at all) first of all, women can ovulate more than once per cycle. Yes they can. Second, there is no sperm viability predictor.
I too couldn’t help but be disappointed by this post. From the moment of conception the child has a complete set of unique DNA and is a human being that is separate from the mother. What merely changes during implantation is the fact that the child starts to receive oxygen and nutrients from the mother to be able to grow.
The evidence is hard to ignore if one is truly seeking the truth regarding when life begins. This has nothing to do with anyone’s religious beliefs.
I really appreciate your blog and the information you share. I know that you are trying to be informational but I agree that women need to know that if they willfully prevent implantation they are ending the life of their baby. The debate of if it is an abortion or not is not necessary.. If an egg is fertilized, yet never implants naturally then that is one thing, but for a person to use any substance to prevent the pregnancy then they are ending life. There is no way around it. Maybe you could add that into the post as a disclaimer? Life is so fragile and precious..
Thanks for sharing this important information, Sarah. Child spacing awareness and information about how our own bodies work are both too important not to share! Women are capable of deciding these things for themselves. To deny us information, to make our contraception decisions dangerous or impossible, is to call our bodies not our own. If we don’t own our bodies, then someone else does, and that is called slavery. Just imagine women ages 12-42 informed and in charge of their bodies worldwide, having babies because we are ready to, because the older one already nursed for a year or two and is happily weaned and thriving, because we are fully recovered from the previous pregnancy, because our husbands are kind and supportive, because we have completed our educations, because we are adults now and can be trusted with basic information about our own bodies.
Regina, this is beautiful. You have described a kind of heaven on earth!
And in this world that you speak of, all women would be over the age of 27 before they started having children. There would not be women who were saved by unplanned pregnancies, physically and mentally, or brought people together through unplanned pregnancies, or created new families. To play God is truly foolish. Trusting our bodies to do what is right is different than being a slave to them. We know how women get pregnant, it is easily avoided if we are “not ready”.