Traditional Medicinal Plants Used to Treat Maternal and Child Health Illnesses in Ethiopia: An Ethno-Botanical Approach

Maternal and child morbidity and mortality is highest in sub Saharan African countries including Ethiopia, due to shortfalls in modern health institutions, women improper use of medicinal plants. Scientific utilization of traditional medicinal plants continues to play an important role in improving and maintaining health problems in developing countries. About (80%) of the Ethiopia people depend on traditional medicine for their health care and more than 90% traditional medicine preparations are made from plant origin. The aim of this review was to provide an overview on traditional medicinal plants used to treat maternal and child health illnesses in Ethiopia. Materials and Methods: Databases (Pub Med, Google Scholar, Research Gate, and HINARI) were searched for published studies on the Ethno-botany of medicinal plants used to treat maternal and child health illnesses in Ethiopia. Studies that did not contain full ethno-botanical data of medicinal plants traditionally used to treat maternal and child health illnesses were excluded. Results: In different database search, the investigators found a total of 360 articles. After adjustment for duplicates and inclusion and exclusion criteria, 38 articles were found appropriate for the review. None of the medicinal plants traditionally used to treat maternal and child health illnesses in Ethiopia are confirmed scientifically. Of the 103 plants identified from the various studies, 25 (25.75%) were herbs and the common plant part used was found to be root 40 (41.2%) followed by leaves 32 (32.96%). Based on this study, medicinal plants the most common route of administration was orally 71 (73.13%). In this review, medicinal plants which were abundant for maternal illness the leading were treatment of retained placenta 24 (24.72%) species followed by abortion, which comprise 6 (6.18%). On the other hand, milk feeding diarrhoea and Kwashiorkor 3 (3.09%) comprise high and equal percentage of childhood infection in Ethiopia. Conclusion: Various medicinal plants have been used by Ethiopian people. Most of the plants were herb and the commonly used plant part was root. The most common maternal illness treated by medicinal plant was retained placenta in children milk feeding diarrhoea and Kwashiorkor. There is a need to conduct clinical trials to support traditional claims and to analyse cellular and molecular mechanisms involved. *Corresponding author: Asmare TW, Department of Midwifery, College of Health Sciences, Debre Markos University, Ethiopia, Tel: +251 -921524150; Fax: 251058-771-16-64; Email: talieasmare@gmail.com Received April 09, 2018; Accepted June 22, 2018; Published July 05, 2018 Citation: Asmare TW, Yilkal BA, Mekuannint T, Yibeltal AT (2018) Traditional Medicinal Plants Used to Treat Maternal and Child Health Illnesses in Ethiopia: An Ethno-Botanical Approach. J Tradit Med Clin Natur 7: 277. doi: 10.4172/25734555.1000277 Copyright: © 2018 Asmare TW, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.