HERBS
Herbs for women’s health Zoe Hawes Medical herbalist
I trained as a nurse in the early 1990s but by the time I completed my training had become very disillusioned. At 20 years old, it was already clear to me that medication and surgery alone seldom addressed the root causes of dis-ease. I also felt that despite good NHS intentions and ideals, the public had come to rely on it for magic bullets. As soon as I qualified, I trained as a medical herbalist, though I continued to nurse in different specialties, and as an infirmary nurse in a monastery boarding school. I started my private practice in Somerset in 2000 and only finally left nursing when I adopted two children in 2011. I host walks and talks on medicinal plants while growing and gathering most of the plants I use in my dispensary.
Herbal medicine views disease as an imbalance in organ function. Medicinal plants work in three main ways to restore balance. The author has found that many female health problems can be helped with common herbs, diet and lifestyle changes. This article aims to give some simple strategies for
Women have long been associated with plant lore and the herbal wisdom for dealing with women’s and family health issues. Whether a wise crone or a good housewife, a midwife, healer or mother, these women knew what plants were growing in their environment and could use them to treat common and minor ailments. Yet over the centuries this knowledge and power has been eroded by the ascent of orthodox medicine, a realm where male medics predominate except in a few specialties like general practice, paediatrics and psychiatry (www.gmc-uk.org/Chapter_1_ SOMEP_2015.pdf_63501394.pdf).
promoting and sustaining a
Educating for self-care
healthy functional balance
In future, where free healthcare may increasingly be less available, we must start educating children about how their bodies work and what a body needs to function in a healthy way. And if we were to empower women to take back some of the healing skills they held traditionally, they would surely hand this knowledge on to their children. As pressures on the NHS increase, women should equip themselves with simple strategies for maintaining their own and their family’s health. Medical herbalists are the only non-medical practitioners legally allowed to diagnose. A consultation is
in the female body. As they cope with the challenges and demands of modern life, and pressures on NHS increase, women can equip themselves with simple strategies to maintain their own and their family’s health.
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usually an hour long and involves taking a full medical history, including diet and lifestyle. This enables the practitioner to identify issues that contribute to the illness and to prescribe a combination of herbs, usually in the form of alcohol extracts or teas specifically made up for that person. Advice on diet and lifestyle factors would be offered too, so the person understands what they can do to support the body to function better. In my practice I see a wide range of conditions, but significantly more women than men, and many have health problems specific to women. My consultations, rather than focusing on a herbal prescription in the short term, are always geared towards helping people understand how to incorporate into their daily lives what their body needs in the long term. You can find your local qualified herbalist through the National Institute of Medical Herbalists or the College of Practitioners of Phytotherapy. Many herbalists run short courses, walks and workshops for people who want to know more.
A system of medicine Mainstream information about herbs tends to focus on specific herbs for particular ailments. However, I learned from a system of medicine called endobiogenics that when a disease
© Journal of holistic healthcare
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Volume 14 Issue 2 Summer 2017
