Abstract:

"Background: Herbal medicine is the derived products from plants that are used for maintenance of health and provide therapeutic action to the user. According to estimates, 80% of people use herbal medicine worldwide. Pregnant women use herbal medicine for pregnancy and non-pregnancy related ailment. This research aimed to determine the practice of herbal medicine use, and the knowledge on the safety of herbal medicine use among pregnant women.

Method: An interviewer-administered questionnaire was used in the study conducted from April 19 to May 23 2023, consisting of 368 participants. Collected data was entered in Microsoft excel and analysed using STATA version 15. The results of the study were presented in frequencies and percentages.

Results and discussion: In this study involving 368 participants, 51.6% were above the age of 31 years. 85.5% were from the rural areas. Majority, 51.8% of participants in the study did not attend formal education, and 98.2% of them were married. Also, 56.7% of the participants declared that they had no history of herbal medicine use, and most of them use 30 minutes to an hour to get the nearest health facility. About 34% of the participants in this study had used herbal medicines while pregnant, and 49.1% of them had a sufficient understanding of the effects of herbal medicines use during pregnancy. Also, the prevalence of herbal medicine usage during pregnancy was 43.3%.

Conclusion: Women’s knowledge of the safety of herbal medicine use was low, and this is mostly due to the distance to reach a health facility, history of herbal medicine use, antenatal clinic visit utilisation, and residence. Also, the prevalence of herbal medicine usage was 43.3%, which is also low considering that herbal medicine is the U-turn of health maintenance today."