Traditional Galactogogues: Spices for Lactating Mother (Prasuti Ka Masala)

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-876-9_21How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Galactogogues; childbearing mother; natural galactogogues; breastfeeding

Abstract

Galactogogues are the substances that help to spur, maintain, and increase the secretion of a lactating mother’s milk during neonatal care. Serving traditional galactagogues to mothers after the delivery of a child is an age-old tradition. The Mother-in-law and the mother of a lactating woman generally prepare a nutritious galactagogue for the newly mother to fulfill the demand of hormones -Prolactin(PRL). It helps in activating the mammary alveoli of the mammary gland where milk production occurs. There are variety of galactogogues made with or fortified with plant-based galactogogues, like asparagus, shatavari, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, fenugreek, goat’s rue, milk thistle, anise, basil, marsh-mallows, etc., which are for the lactating or weaning mother. But still, the traditional galactagogues are more preferred. This might be because of its no side effects on the newborn and child. One such is Prasuti ka Masala(Child bearing spices) or Parsauti Ke Masala. “Prasuti” means child birth and “masala” means spices, which signifies a spice that is for child childbearing mother who has given birth to a child in the recent few days and is lactating. Prasuti Masala is very common in states of India like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, etc. This food is made of a paste of Cumin seeds, Ginger, Turmeric, Jaggery, Raisins, Almonds, black pepper, and clarified butter (cow’s Ghee). In this fast-growing world, the traditional galactogogues are losing its importance due to non-awareness, galactogogues made by the branded company, myths, etc. This article is trying to bring forth the traditional galactogogues, their making, their nutritional value, preservation technique, and the tradition of our great-grandmothers and grandmothers to be preserved for the new upcoming generation.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Guddi Tiwary
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/10/23
TI  - Traditional Galactogogues: Spices for Lactating Mother (Prasuti Ka Masala)
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Sustainable Science and Technology for Tomorrow (SciTech 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 286
EP  - 293
SN  - 3091-4442
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-876-9_21
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-876-9_21
ID  - Tiwary2025
ER  -