Prevalence of herbal medicine use and associated factors among pregnant women attending antenatal care at public health facilities in Hossana Town, Southern Ethiopia: facility based cross sectional study

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines traditional medicine as health practices, approaches, knowledge and beliefs incorporating plant, animal and mineral based medicines, spiritual therapies, manual techniques and exercises, applied singularly or in combination to treat, diagnose and prevent illnesses and maintain well-being [1].

Herbal medicines, which is part of traditional medicines are defined as plant-derived material or preparations perceived to have therapeutic benefits; they often contain raw or processed ingredients from one or more plants [2]. Herbal medicines include herbs, herbal materials, herbal preparations, and finished herbal products that contain parts of plants or other plant materials as active ingredients [3]. It is known that between 65 and 80 % of the world’s population use herbal medicines as their primary form of health care [4]. Patients who are likely to be at risk from adverse effects of herbal medicines include those who are already prone to difficulties from regularly prescribed medications namely foetus, infants and older children, the elderly, as well as pregnant and lactating women [5].

In Asian countries such as China, traditional medicine accounts for around 40 % of all health care delivered. In Africa up to 80 % of the population uses traditional medicine to help meet their health care needs [6]. The use of herbal medicine in Africa is associated with a lower level of education, use before the index pregnancy, age, low economic status and trimester of pregnancy [7, 8].

Up to 80 % of Ethiopian population use traditional medicine. The reasons for traditional medicines uses in Ethiopia are the cultural acceptability of healers and local pharmacopeia’s, the relatively low cost of traditional medicine and difficult access to modern health facilities [9]. Study conducted on use of herbal medicine among pregnant women on one hospital of Ethiopia showed that 69.84 % herbs were used during the first trimester and 4.76 % of women used herbs in all trimesters. Commonly used herbs were ginger (44.36 %), garlic (37.32 %), eucalyptus (9.15 %) and tenaadam (9.15 %) [10].

Herbal medicines used by pregnant women were self-prepared mostly by mixing different parts of plants, while some took prepared and pre-packaged herbal medicinal products. One of the major reasons cited by pregnant women for taking herbal remedies included higher efficacy of herbal medicines when compared with conventional medicines, safety in pregnancy (because they are natural products), beliefs concerning cultural heritage of herbal medicines and comparatively low cost of herbal medicines [11].

Studies have also reported different characteristics of women, which makes them more likely to take herbal medicine in pregnancy. These included being older, married, primiparous, having tertiary education, being less educated and severity of nausea and vomiting [12–14].

Having recognized the significance of traditional medicine more readily, greater attention has been paid by governments of many developing countries in recent years to promote the widespread application of the practice in health care. This has given a new impetus to relevant research, investment and design of programs in the area in many countries [15].

The study of herbal medicine use related to maternal health, a public health priority in many African countries including Ethiopia, has been limited. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess the prevalence of herbal medicine use and associated factors among pregnant women attending antenatal care clinics at public health facilities in Hossana town.