Do Not Use Herbal Skin Care Products While Pregnant

Amy Miller — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:57:06 +0000

Pregnant women looking for some acne remedies have limited choices available to them because of a lack of research and clinical work dealing with this topic. No herbal compounds available for effective acne care have been rigorously tested related to pregnancy. From the point of view of government regulators, jeopardizing the life of a baby for cosmeteic reasons isn’t going to work so the liklihood of this happening is close to zero.
So a very clear warning has to preface this article. Herbal medicines can be very powerful, remember that many modern pharmaceuticals have been derived from herbs, and they may or may not be safe for pregnant women. The label “herbal” is no guarantee of safety for your unborn child. The hormonal changes and skin changes during pregnancy eliminate any certainty or ongoing trials on non-pregnant women.
As an example, you might consider soybean-derived medication to be safe because you likely eat soybean products. In fact, if you use a soybean-based skin cleanser during pregnancy, you might make some of those dark splotches, “the mask of pregnancy’ much worse. Soy mimics the hormone estrogen and should be avoided. On the other hand, “activated soy” does not have estrogen because the estrogen compounds have been removed during processing. You have to read labels carefully.
You will see honey recommended and used for skin care. Research shows that medical grade honey does indeed have a healing effect on your skin. But research also shows that some food-grade honey is contaminated with spores that might make your skin worse rather than better. The problem here is that you don’t know if your honey source is contaminated. nor do you know what effect this might have on the baby. When you are healthy, your body would shrug it off, does it do this when you are pregnant?
The questions that are raised about the health and safety of both the mother and the child can not be reliably answered because of a lack of clinical trials. And few people think the risk on a fetus for a clinical trial for acne medications is warranted. Bottom line? Your acne has a time-limited duration of nine months so this is, frankly, just one more thing to deal with. Other drugs to avoid during pregnancy can be found here. And the best way to deal with it is to use cleansing routines and keep your skin healthy in traditional ways.
So while the promise of herbs sounds good in theory, in practice herbal acne care during pregnancy is a complicated and not recommended.

Doug Green is an award-winning freelance writer who writes about acne care and treatment at http://www.acne-prevention-and-treatment.com/acne-treatment.html
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Written by Amy Miler - Help With Acne

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Do Not Use Herbal Skin Care Products While Pregnant