herbs in early pregnancy

[Guest guest]

I have a patient who might be consulting me (her mum, a friend of

mine, wants her to!) who is 28 and suffers terrible anxiety and

always has. She thinks she will be found out as inept and stupid

all the time. She was in bits before her A-levels, but won an award

for having the highest mark in English in the whole country! Now

she works as a journalist and manages her anxiety with prescription

drugs (don't know which ones) which really help, but she wants to

conceive and her GP has said the drugs are contraindicated in

pregnancy, so she should come off them. She is already anxious

about being infertile, although she and her husband haven't started

trying yet! What she wants is an anti-anxiety mix that she can take

before and all the way through her pregnancy. I've been looking

through all my various herb safety books and they all say different

things about which herbs are contraindicated in early pregnancy.

One has all the nervines apart from scutellaria and avena as no-

no's. Another one recommends matricaria, hypericum, leonurus,

passiflora, melissa, rosa and tilia as well as scut and avena.

Another just says that there isn't enough data to really know, so

avoid all herbs just in case. Help! Having read up again on what

anxiety can do to your body chemistry, I am fairly sure that taking

herbs will do less harm than the endogenous stress hormones and

chemicals, but I would like some advice before I see this woman.

Thanks,

bel