Ethnobotany combined with women's health in the SUS: a study with the Caiçara Traditional Community of Sertão do Ubatumirim/Ubatuba/SP

Abstract

The use of medicinal plants in a therapeutic way is a practice that is of great importance in the care of women's health and often represents the only treatment option for women who use the Unified Health System (SUS) for the promotion and recovery of their health. In this direction, an ethnobotanical survey was conducted in the Caiçara Traditional Community of Sertão do Ubatumirim, Ubatuba, São Paulo, seeking to identify plant species used by the community in the treatment of women's health. After field collection, a documental analysis was carried out in order to observe those promising species in the development of phytotherapics to be made available in primary care. Of the 16 species identified, seven were included in at least one of the government documents analyzed, but none of the species had the indications for use described by the interviewees for women's health. In this way, it is necessary to develop new ethnobotanical and ethnopharmacological research that value Brazilian biodiversity and traditional knowledge, and allow medicinal plants used by communities to be studied, have proven efficacy and safety, and be converted into herbal medicines made available by the SUS to guarantee and promote women's health in Brazil.