[QUOTE=lanette] I too know how it is to be depressed, and I actually made the decision to stop breast feeding after 2 months in order to take meds. I thought my son would be better off drinking formula and having a more emotionally stable mom. They say babies and children can feel and are effected by the moods of there caretakers. As far as whether St. Johns wart is safe, nobody knows for sure. One thing I do know for sure though is it metabolizes estrogen and conteracts birth control pills. That's how I got pregnant.[/QUOTE]

I'm, all the time, telling people that but no one listens. These "suppliments" are drugs and should be taken seriously.

The last poster said : "I'm, all the time, telling people that but no one listens. These "suppliments" are drugs and should be taken seriously."

I don't believe St. John's wort should be considered a "drug". About four years a go, I took every medicine out there for depression, and none of it helped. The meds made me worse; I was a zombie, and had no interest in making love with my husband. Some days I was too sleepy to take a shower or brush my teeth. Until I discovered St. John's wort (I also had great results with 5-HTP), I didn't know I could ever feel "normal" again. In a nutshell, St. John's wort is :

Here is the briefest possible summary of hypericum and the treatment of depression:

Hypericum is Hypericum Perforatum, also known as St. John's Wort (St. John the Baptist, not the Beloved). It is a short, yellow-flowering, wild-growing plant — healing herb to some; troublesome weed to others. It has a 2,400-year history of safe and effective usage in folk, herbal, and ancient medicine. Hypericum was prescribed as medicine by Hippocrates himself.

A series of recent double-blind, placebo-controlled studies indicate that a specific extract of Hypericum perforatum was as effective as prescription antidepressants but had far fewer side effects (thus available without a prescription for the treatment of mild to moderate depression) and cost considerably less — about 25 cents a day.

In Germany, more than fifty percent of depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders are treated with hypericum. Prozac has two percent.

Well, I was just wondering if anyone here took it while breastfeeding. I just started back taking it a few days ago, not for depression, because I haven't had to battle that in years, but just a fatigue that I can't shake. Honestly just the few days I have been taking it again, I notice a little more pep in my step, and the feeling of "well-being" it brings, as well.

It is a drug, heroin is made from a flower as well. :-) You are not going out into the field and picking these plants yourself, they are manufactured at a factory somewhere and things are added to the formula.

Some of these things as the other poster said make birth control pill ineffective. Ginkgo Baloba can make blood-thinners ineffective, etc.

I'm not in any way saying these things are useless just that they should be treated like any other drug.

The bottom line is these things are not FDA regulated and you need to be careful with them. I'm not saying don't take them at all. Just be careful. It's safe to take tylenol for a head ache but not safe to take with alcohol, because what it can do to your liver.

Yes, we have to realize that none of us know the long term side effects of anything. Even the drugs they say ARE safe; not Prozac, Zoloft or any of it. I took Neurontin for a while, now we learn it has caused some to commit suicide and has been taken off the shelves. I will prayerfully continue to take St. John's Wort, because it helps me, and I believe since it is weaker than the approved "drugs" that it should be harmless since I am taking only 1/3 of the dosage that doctors say should be safe to take. I don't take any medications, or birth control so drug interactions isn't a problem for me, neither is drinking alcohol. The bottom line is we all have to find what works for us and hope and pray in the long run it hasn't harmed us---Lord knows just b/c the FDA says something is safe doesn't mean anything. As far as the fact that I didn't go out and pick the plant myself could have gone withot saying. I am sure no one goes out and picks their own coffee beans, but you trust Starbucks that it is really coffee. You don't pick your own cotton, but you trust Hanes that it is synthetic. Come on....

Again, I'm not disagreeing with you. But is coffee is food. The government regularly inspects the plants. Cotton has a whole series of inspections and tests from the cotton fields to the store shelf.

Only supplements, through a quirk in the law, have no oversight or inspection of any kind - even though people ingest them.

Again, I'm not disagreeing with you. But is coffee is food. The government regularly inspects the plants. Cotton has a whole series of inspections and tests from the cotton fields to the store shelf.

Only supplements, through a quirk in the law, have no oversight or inspection of any kind - even though people ingest them.

I say coffee is a drug, it has a stimulant called caffien and it isnt food. Just like Twinkies are not food.

Alchohol is approved and inspected as well. It is also made from plant material as well and serves no purpose other than making you intoxicated. It can kill you if you ingest to much and even still, as toxic to the human body as we all know they are....take so long to kill you even if you consume it every day for years. :P

Ill take my chances with my moderate intake of a well known benificial herb called St. Johns Wort . :)

Again, I'm not disagreeing with you. But is coffee is food. The government regularly inspects the plants. Cotton has a whole series of inspections and tests from the cotton fields to the store shelf.

Only supplements, through a quirk in the law, have no oversight or inspection of any kind - even though people ingest them.

I say coffee is a drug, it has a stimulant called caffien and it isnt food. Just like Twinkies are not food.

Ill take my chances with my moderate intake of a well known benificial herb called St. Johns Wort . :)

Did you read the thread, we're talking about breastfeeding a baby. I did not attack St. John's Wart.