Abstract
Background: Herbal medicines use has prevailed over the past decades in both low-middle-income and high-income countries over the years. The use among women has increased with increased risks of ill-health. There is extensive literature on herbal medicine use among women in pre/pregnancy, labour, and the postpartum periods. Therefore, this study aimed to understand women’s purposes, experiences, and motivation for using herbal medicines during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum, and the experiences associated with the use. Methods: Four critical databases were predetermined and searched: CINAHL, Medline, Web of Science, and EMBASE. These databases were chosen for their comprehensiveness and relevance to the review aims. We considered peer-reviewed published articles from January 2000 to December 2018. We chose these databases because we found that they are dominant in the medical and healthcare-related literature. All references were pooled to Endnote reference management software for screening. Quality appraisal of articles was conducted using the Mixed-Method Assessment Tool (MMAT). Content analysis approach was used to extra the data from the articles. Globally, twenty-one articles met the inclusion criteria, and thus, formed the dataset for this review. Results: Most articles (n = 10, 47.6%) reported solely HM uses on only pregnancy whiles the rest evaluated HM uses in labour, pre-pregnancy, and the postpartum periods. The results have shown that the majority of women received information about HM from friends, family, the “black markets,” and drug outlets. Overall, the results were presented in seven broad themes: 1) sociodemographic characteristics of HM users, 2) perceived threat of health problem, 3) sources and quality of the information received, 4) susceptibility to health complications, 5) potential limitations to the use of HM, 6) the motivation for HM utilization, 7) concerns on the combined use of herbal and allopathic medicines. Conclusion: The study recommends the further research into the toxicity of herbal products, to ensure that accurate information can be provided to women before use.
Highlights
Improving maternal health outcomes has faced substantial challenges across the globe
Pharmaceutical medicines are known to be useful for treating maternal health complications, managing labour induction, and for helping improve the overall health outcome of the mother and the foetus [3]
Three had no specific reporting format and explored other components of herbal medicine (HM) use in maternal health such as infertility [13], knowledge and attitudes towards HM use [29] [37], articles were downgraded if the content were not explicitly on the aims of the study
Summary
Improving maternal health outcomes has faced substantial challenges across the globe. Pharmaceutical (allopathic) medicines are known to be useful for treating maternal health complications, managing labour induction, and for helping improve the overall health outcome of the mother and the foetus [3]. The 1978 Alma-Ata declaration reinforces this relevance [4] [5], and this is reflected in the increase in the use of herbal medicines globally [4] [6]. This is mainly because it has been perceived as natural and safe [7] [8]. There is extensive literature on herbal medicine use among women in pre/pregnancy, labour, and the postpartum periods.
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