Just as expectant mothers need to be careful about what medications they take, they should also exercise caution when taking herbal supplements.That’s the conclusion of a case study, which appears in a letter in the July 15 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The letter details the story of a baby who had a stroke, possibly because its mother drank blue cohosh tea to induce labor."Blue cohosh has been known to stimulate uterine contractions, and was a folk remedy used to initiate labor if a mother was past her due date,” said Dr. Richard Finkel, one of the doctors who reported the case and an associate clinical professor in pediatrics and neurology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. When this happened, Finkel was a consulting pediatric neurologist at Littleton Adventists Hospital in Littleton, Colorado.Blue cohosh is from the plant Caulophyllum thallictroides, according to Mark Blumenthal, executive director of the American Botanical Council.
