The outcome of complementary and alternative medicine use among pregnant women in South-East Nigeria: a multi-centre prospective study.

There is a global increasing trend of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use among pregnant women. This study aimed at determining the maternal and perinatal outcome of CAM use among the pregnant women in South-East Nigeria. This was a prospective study in which self-administered semi-structured questionnaires were used to collate information from the consenting pregnant women who use CAM and those who did not use CAM from the gestational age of 36 weeks at four hospitals in South-East Nigeria. Both groups were matched for age, parity and address. Every participant was followed up until delivery. Data were analysed using SPSS version 23 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL). This study's ethical clearance number was NHREC/05/01/2008B-FWA00002458-1RB00002323 and it was obtained at UNTH and on February 15 2019. CAM use in pregnancy was associated with low haemoglobin concentration, maternal complications, high caesarean section rate, low birth weight, low APGAR score, large placental weight and high hospital admission of babies when compared with non-CAM users (p value= <.05). In conclusion, CAM use in pregnancy was associated with poor maternal and perinatal health indices, hence the need to implement policies aimed at reversing them.Impact StatementWhat is already known on this subject? There is an increasing trend of CAM use among pregnant women in the world. Pregnancy is associated with certain conditions that predispose women to CAM use. The clinical indications for CAM use by the pregnant women are nausea and vomiting, labour pain, induction of labour, pedal oedema and waist pain.What the results of this study add? CAM use in pregnancy was associated with low haemoglobin concentration, maternal complications, high caesarean section rate, low birth weight, low APGAR score, large placental weight and high hospital admission of the babies when compared with non-CAM users.What the implications are of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? CAM use in pregnancy was associated with poor maternal and perinatal health indices, hence the need to implement policies aimed at reversing them.

Menstrual disorders in adolescent school girls in Enugu, Nigeria.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence, pattern of menstrual disorders, treatment practices, and the effect of menstrual disorders on school attendance in adolescent school girls in Enugu, Nigeria. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey. SETTING: Randomly selected secondary schools. PARTICIPANTS: Postmenarcheal adolescent school girls aged 10-19 years. METHODOLOGY: Pretested, semi-structured questionnaires were used to survey 500 consenting students. The main outcome measures were menstrual disorders. Data was analyzed using SPSS for windows version 15. Data was compared using chi-square test and P ≤ 0.05 was regarded as statistically significant. RESULTS: Four hundred ninety-five students responded giving a response rate of 99%. The mean age of the girls was 14.9 ± 1.7 years. Most were Christians (99.2%) and their mean age of menarche was 12.7 ± 1.3 years. The prevalence of menstrual disorders was 69.4% and dysmenorrhea, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and short menstrual cycles were the commonest disorder. Being older, later age of menarche, and being domiciled in the boarding house were significantly associated with menstrual disorders (P < 0.05). Dysmenorrhea was responsible for the greatest number of school abscences. The mean days of school absenteeism was 1.8 ± 1.2. In 80% of cases paracetamol, aspirin, or piroxican were the drugs used for symptom relief. Only 16.3% of respondents ever consulted a doctor for their menstrual disorders. CONCLUSION: There was a high prevalence of menstrual disorders as well as a high rate of non-expert treatment of the disorders. This underscores the need for awareness creation. Parents and adolescents should consult trained practitioners when significant menstrual disorder occurs in order to rule out or treat associated or underlying medical conditions.