Herbal healing in pregnancy: women's experiences

Abstract

Many women use home remedies to maintain their health during pregnancy. Here, pregnant women's perspectives on herbal medicine are exposed in a small (n = 27) non-random sample of pregnant women in British Columbia, Canada, and follow-up interviews with six mentors from the community. While many of the women were cautious about using herbs during pregnancy, they considered them to be safer-as a general rule-than pharmaceutical drugs. Herbal tonics were widely used, and simple home remedies were usually the first line of defence against common health complaints. In choosing to self-medicate with herbs, the women said they were guided by prior knowledge (32%), trusted sources of advice (56%), and intuition (12%). A reliance on prior knowledge was not strongly correlated with the woman's age (r = -0.27) or the number of pregnancies she had experienced (r = 0.21). Trusted sources of advice included books, friends, family members, maternity care providers, herbalists, herb shops, and internet. The majority of herbal advice (69%) was received by word-of-mouth. The women's mentors were an important source of herbal self-care information.