What to do if You Can’t Get Baby Formula
This will be a quicky…
In the interest of helping my fellow Americans survive the current insanity. I threw together a little information to help those who can’t get formula to feed their babies:
Herbalists have used blessed thistle (Cnicus benedictus) to induce lactation, so if you’ve stopped producing milk, aren’t producing enough milk, or want to produce milk to help another woman feed her baby, drink 2-3 cups of blessed thistle infusion (tea) per day until you’re producing enough milk. To make an infusion, put a tsp of blessed thistle herb into a cup, pour a cup of boiling distilled water over it, let it steep until it’s cool enough, strain the leaf material out and drink.
If you’re producing milk but it doesn’t satisfy your baby, you can enrich your milk by drinking a cup or two a day of Marshmallow root (Althaea officinalis) decoction (a different type of tea made by simmering 1 tsp marshmallow root in 1 cup hot distilled water for 20-30 minutes on the stove top, then strain, cool and drink.) This makes for a very nutritious, satisfying, more filling milk for your baby. It also helps for mom to take a spoonful of superfood in some home made juice every day to make sure your milk has all the nutrition it should/can.
When making herbal infusions and decoctions, heat the water on the stove top, DO NOT use a microwave to make medicinal teas or other medicinal preparations. The chemistry is complex but the long and short of it is that making a medicinal tea with a microwave can make it less effective. Also, steam distilled water is the best for making herbal teas, but if you don’t have any, just use filtered/purified water or the cleanest water available.
If you’ve had a double mastectomy, your taking some medical treatment that makes it dangerous to breastfeed, etc. you can talk to other willing women about nursing (or pumping milk and giving it to you) with the help of the blessed thistle tea. You can also contact the La Leche League, Intl. for help in finding a volunteer and for other help/resources.
Avoid using sage while you're nursing. It dries up milk production. After you wean (ideally when your baby is at least 18 months old), THEN you can drink sage tea to stop lactating.
Remember that human breast milk is vastly superior to infant formula anyway and if you can find a way to feed your baby his/her natural food, you will help ensure baby’s immune system develops as it should and reduce the chances of colic now and food allergies later in life. These are healthy changes to make even when there isn’t a baby formula shortage.