★★★☆☆
BETTER BUT WITH SIDE EFFECTS
I drank raspberry leaf tea religiously for the second half of my pregnancy. I usually had 3-4 cups throughout the day. I drank it to promote a speedier and more efficient labor as well as for the health benefits. Well, I'm not sure if it was the tea, or if it was because it was my second pregnancy, but the labor only lasted two hours. I was not even in the hospital a complete hour before my child was born!
I heard that drinking this tea can cause extrememly painful contractions, which I had. I also went from thinking that "This just might be it" to "Oh my! We need to leave now!!!" in a matter of minutes. No joke. It went so fast I did not get any drugs, which I was going to try to do without anyway, but regretted not getting at the time. It was almost like I just about skipped labor and went straight to delivery, at least that was what it felt like.
There really was no progression of pain. I was terrified because the contractions were so horrible that I was afraid that they were going to get worse as it went along, but it didn't. Even at the end the pain never got worse, it was just extremely intense the WHOLE time. After delivery, I was also in extreme pain, which still felt like labor, for quite some time afterwards until they gave me a pain killer. I didn't even get to hold my baby for the first half hour. The nurses did say that is pretty normal for a second labor especially when you have no drugs, you feel it more.
I wanted it to go fast, but not so fast I couldn't wrap my head around it. It was really quite dramatic! Again, I'm not sure if it was from the tea, or if it would have been like that normally. I do know I ignored the warnings about severe contractions because I thought faster was better.
It took a little longer to heal. I think because going that fast is harder on your body?? One good thing though, I only had one tiny little tear that didn't even need to be stiched, which I was quite amazed about.
