A Little Bit About Tea Culture
If you’re like me, you love tea. This post will be focused on teas that are good to drink during pregnancy (and a bonus lactation tea).
First off, let’s discuss the difference between a tea and a tisane.
Tea 101: Tea Versus Tisane
Learning the difference between a tea and a tisane is important due to the caffeine consumption problem that every pregnant woman must consider.
When it comes to what one might call a “true tea,” this would be anything that comes from the Camellia sinensis plant. This includes black, green, and white teas.
Tisanes (tizz-ANs) do not contain caffeine and do not come from Camellia sinensis. They are known by the more popular term “herbal teas.” These could contain dried fruit, herbs, and even bark (like cinnamon).
None of the teas mentioned here will be caffeinated, so they will all be herbal teas. One last note—consuming caffeine while pregnant is safe, but it must be within certain low limits, so true teas don’t necessarily have to be completely out of the pantry during your pregnancy.
Some Important Tea Notes
- If you ever feel confused as to whether you can drink a certain tea while pregnant, turn the box over and see if the pregnancy warning label is there. You should find it in a paragraph on the back of the package. If the warning is there, lean conservative and put the tea back.
- Please don’t overindulge in any tea, even if it’s a pregnancy-safe tea. In other words, just because it’s good for you doesn’t mean you should drink six cups per day.
- Buy loose leaf! While it tends to be more expensive, it’s worth it. Many harmful chemicals have been found in tea bags, more specifically after you pour hot water on them; any chemicals used in the creation process of those bags can leech into your water. Buying loose leaf eliminates that risk.
- Please buy organic. While organics usually cost more, they’re worth it. Cheap non-organic brands may taste decent but as with the bags, have been shown to leech pesticides in your water after they’re boiled. This includes glyphosate, which is the main ingredient in Round-Up, which is consequently used on non-organic crops.
All right, let’s get into it.
Top 4 Herbal Teas for Pregnancy and Lactation
Ginger
One of my absolute favorite teas is ginger tea, and it’s deceptively simple to make. Since I’ve been a chronic sufferer of GI issues for over half my life, ginger tea is something of a savior for how good it is at reducing nausea, settling your stomach, and improving digestion. This is something I can attest to personally—for years, no less. Oftentimes while pregnant you may feel all of those above symptoms. But let me tell you, even in my worst GI moments I’ve been able to stomach ginger tea.
My favorite way to make ginger tea is to make it completely homemade. If your store (or local health store) carries it, consider buying fresh ginger root. This is a knobby, ugly-looking thing that you can find in the produce section. Then, if you don’t have it already, consider buying a microplane. This is a simple and non-expensive kitchen tool perfect for grating things finely or zesting, like garlic cloves or lemons. I’ll link one here. Next, get a pot and pour in as much water as you like. Then grate a piece of the ginger root on the microplane. The grated ginger will collect on the back of the microplane where you can scrape it off into the water. Bring the water to a boil.
You can experiment here, as it’s not a science. Depending on how strong you like your tea, you can grate off very little or more. But be careful—grating too much ginger will lead to an overly spicy tea. How long you boil this mixture also depends on how strong of a flavor you want. If you don’t have a microplane, you can finely dice the ginger, but expect the tea to have a blander flavor.
In my opinion, making ginger tea from the root is much more cost-effective than buying it otherwise, since even a small root will give you many cups of tea. Otherwise, ginger tea often comes in bags and violates my recommendation above to buy loose leaf.
Red Raspberry Leaf
While much more research needs to be done on the claim that this tea helps pregnant women, it has been said for decades (and by some providers) that this tea is beneficial to those expecting. Some studies are out there, but they are small and infrequent. With that being said, “Raspberry leaf use in pregnancy,” published in BMC Complimentary Medicine and Therapies, claims that under the conditions of their study “the use of raspberry leaf was significantly and strongly predictive of women not having their labours medically augmented [medically helped, like a C-section]” (Bowman 2024). But the authors of this study mention that while their research pointed in favor of raspberry leaf tea, the results “cannot be relied on or generalised to the wider population of pregnant women” (Bowman 2024).
I know you may feel confused by these positive/negative results, but if you’d like to try raspberry leaf tea as many pregant women have, err on the conservative side by not overindulging and waiting until the second trimester to start this tea (which is what some cautious providers recommend) (Jweihan 2025). Unlike ginger tea, which for many has obvious positive effects (like reduction in nausea) and can be consumed more often and earlier on in pregancy, raspberry leaf tea is a little more elusive. While this tea is harder to make home-made (unless you happen to have a raspberry bush), it is available loose-leaf, like this.
Peppermint Leaf
This type of tea has similar effects to ginger in the sense that it can quell a queasy stomach. While ginger can have a spicy sensation that some may find uncomfortable, peppermint is very mild. Again, to mention my long-time experience with GI issues, I can tell you firsthand that peppermint tea does have a great calming and anti-nausea effect. It has a lot of essential oils inside the leaves and some trials have shown that these oils can have great positive effects on your GI system, especially with IBS. It’s one of the world’s oldest medicinal herbs and even ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian cultures used it as medicine (Laelago 2018). Since peppermint is incredibly easy to grow, you can buy a plant from a nursery and use the leaves to boil in water, or you can buy loose leaf. But a warning here: if you struggle with acid reflux (heartburn), you’ll want to avoid this tea, as it can worsen symptoms. Take it from me.
Fenugreek Seed
Fenugreek is a plant from the pea family and has been used by lactating women for many years. One important fact to keep in mind is that fenugreek tea should likely only be consumed in the postnatal period; it can cause miscarriage and premature labor during pregnancy, although this is usually in high amounts (Shinde 2012). Fortunately, fenugreek is generally considered safe by the FDA, so only high doses of it should causes issues in any stage of pregancy or lactation (Simbar 2022).
In “A Comparative Study on the Effects of Honey and Fenugreek,” published in Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, it was found that “consuming fenugreek as an herbal tea [] leads to more milk volume and more frequent breastfeeding” (Simbar 2022).
“Effect of fenugreek on breast milk production and weight gain among Infants in the first week of life,” from Clinical Epidemiology and Global Health, saw within their study that “fenugreek enhances breast milk production among postnatal mothers and facilitates birth weight of infants within the initial week of life” (Ravi 2020). This is because the “seeds of fenugreek stimulate hormone precursors leading to enhancement in the milk production” (Ravi 2020). So while “there has been no formal research on fenugreek,” an “increasing amount of observational and anecdotal evidence points to its efficacy” and so is considered “a potent stimulator of breast milk production that appears to be safe for mother and baby” (Ravi 2020).
I know what you may be thinking: I’ve never heard of fenugreek. Where do I get it?
As with many other spices and herbs, try to search for any fenugreek tea at your local chain store or a health store. But if this fails, there’s always the Internet. You could try something like this, which is a bag of raw, organic fenugreek seeds.
Making the tea yourself takes a little extra effort, but only a little. Using 1 teaspoon of seeds, gently crush them in a mortar and pestle, with the flat side of a knife on a cutting board, or by gently smashing them in a plastic bag with a rolling pin (or comparable tool). Boil 1 cup (8oz) of water, then turn the heat off. Pour the seeds in, put a lid on the pot, and let it steep for 3-5 minutes. Strain out the seeds. Then add honey, because fenugreek tea probably needs a little honey, as you can imagine.
Conclusion
As a recap, here’s a list of all teas discussed and important points to remember:
- Never overdo it by drinking too many cups of tea
- Buy organic and loose leaf
- Ginger and mint are good during pregnancy to relieve GI woes
- Raspberry leaf tea should be drunk during the second and third trimesters
- Fenugreek is good for lactation and is only drunk after pregnancy
Hopefully this post gave you some insight into a little bit of tea history, the positive effects of some teas on pregnancy and lactation, and how to purchase or make these teas.
See you next time!
Works Cited
Bowman, Rebekah L, et al. “Raspberry Leaf (Rubus Idaeus) Use in Pregnancy: A Prospective Observational Study.” BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, vol. 24, no. 1, 22 Apr. 2024. Springer Nature Link, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12906-024-04465-7.
Laelago, Tariku. “Herbal Medicine Use during Pregnancy: Benefits and Untoward Effects.” InTechOpen, 5 Nov. 2018, www.intechopen.com/chapters/61138.
Ravi, Reena, and Jasmine Joseph. “Effect of Fenugreek on Breast Milk Production and Weight Gain among Infants in the First Week of Life.” Clinical Epidemiology and Global Health, vol. 8, no. 3, Sept. 2020, pp. 656–660. ScienceDirect, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cegh.2019.12.021.
Shinde, Poonam, et al. “Herbs in Pregnancy and Lactation: A Review Appraisal.” International Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research, vol. 3, no. 9, 2012. CiteSeerX, citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=dfbe26501e4f5e5495cb981095b6a6d2aa162283.
Simbar, Masoumeh, et al. “A Comparative Study on the Effects of “Honey and Fenugreek” with “Fenugreek” on the Breastfeeding Success: A Randomized Trial.” Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 23 June 2022, pp. 1–11. Wiley Online Library, https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/6048280.
“Tea during Pregnancy? Best & Worst Teas for Pregnancy.” Mom Loves Best, 14 Feb. 2025, momlovesbest.com/tea-during-pregnancy#q5.
About the Author
Krista Ruffo, born and raised in Orlando, Florida, began blogging with South Project in February of 2025. She’s a UCF alum with a BA in English and a Certificate in Editing and Publishing. A passionate writer and reader, Krista aspires to work in book publishing in the future. She currently works as a Content Coordinator for a family magazine. In her free time, she enjoys writing poems, taking photos, and gardening.