Abstract
BackgroundThe use of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) has been widely promoted as a natural and safe way to treat illness during pregnancy. However, prescription patterns and factors influencing its use are largely unknown. Therefore, we conducted a population-based study to address these questions.MethodsPregnant women aged 18–50 years were selected from Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database between 2001 to 2011. CHM prescriptions and diagnostic records were collected. Demographic data and pre-existing diseases were compared between CHM users and non-users. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to identify possible factors influencing the use of CHM during pregnancy.ResultsA total of 81,873 eligible prescription records were identified, and 16,553 pregnant women were prescribed CHM during pregnancy, yielding a CHM prescription rate of 20.2%. The three most frequently used herbs were Scutellariae Radix (Huang Qin) (4.4%), Eucommiae cortex (Du Zhong) (2.5%), and Atractylodes Rhizome (Bai Zhu) (2.4%). The most frequently used herbal formulae were Dang-Guei-Shao-Yao-San (4.1%), Jia-Wei-Xiao-Yao-San (3.5%), and Xiang-Sha-Liu-Jun-Zi-Tang (2.6%). Multivariate logistic regression revealed that subjects with an older age, a university education, a pre-pregnancy history of CHM use, asthma, chronic renal disease, and cardiac valvular disease and living in a residential area other than northern Taiwan had an increase in adjusted odds ratio for CHM use during pregnancy.ConclusionsIn this population-based study, we found that demographic factors and pre-existing diseases were associated with the use of CHM among pregnant women. It is worth noting that Leonuri Herba (Yi Mu Cao) and Shao-Fu-Zhu-Yu-Tang should be used with caution in the first trimester. Further research is needed to explore the safety and effectiveness of the use of CHM in pregnant women.
Highlights
The use of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) has been widely promoted as a natural and safe way to treat illness during pregnancy
Higher percentages of maternal comorbidities such as asthma, chronic renal disease, Sickle cell disease, and cardiac valvular disease were present in CHM users compared to non-users (P < 0.05)
CHM use 6 months prior to pregnancy was more common among traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) users than non-users (63.1% vs. 22.7%, P < 0.05)
Summary
The use of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) has been widely promoted as a natural and safe way to treat illness during pregnancy. Prescription patterns and factors influencing its use are largely unknown. Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) has been widely used as a natural and safe way to treat illness during pregnancy [1]. The prescription patterns and factors influencing the use of CHM during pregnancy are largely unknown. Previous studies have shown that there are differences in the socio-demographic and health-related characteristics between users of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and non-users [9]. Subjects with old age, females, high socioeconomic groups, and those with a high education level and health problems are prone to use CAM in countries other than Taiwan [9,10,11]. Factors influencing the use of CHM in the subset of pregnant women remain unclear
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