Background: The use of herbal medicine has been increasing in many low- and high-income countries. Because of the cost-effectiveness of treatment and easy access to these drugs, many pregnant women use herbal products to treat the problem associated with pregnancy. Research findings are highly variable and contradictory across Ethiopia on the prevalence and predictors of herbal medicine use among pregnant women. As a result, this systematic review and meta-analysis aims to estimate the overall prevalence of herbal medicine use and its predictors among pregnant women in Ethiopia.

Method: We searched articles from the databases of Medline (PubMed), EMBASE, HINARI, Google Scholar, Science Direct, Cochrane Library, and other sources. The study included a total of eight studies reporting prevalence and herbal medicine use predictors among pregnant women from various regions of Ethiopia. Cochrane Q test statistics and I² tests were used to assess heterogeneity. Since the included studies exhibited high heterogeneity, a random effect meta-analysis model was used to estimate the overall prevalence. In addition, the association between risk factors and herbal medicine use related pregnant women were examined.

Results: Analysis of eight studies showed that the use of pooled herbal medicine in pregnant women attending antenatal care in Ethiopia was 47.77% (95% CI: 28.00–67.55). An analysis by geographic regions shows that the highest prevalence of 57.49% (95% CI: 53.14–61.85) was observed in Oromia Region and the least prevalence was observed in Addis Ababa 31.39% (95% CI: 2.83–79.96). The herbal medicines commonly taken by women during pregnancy were ginger 41.11 (95% CI: 25.90–56.32) followed by damakasse34.63 (95% CI: 17.68–51.58), garlic 32.98 (95% CI: 22.21–43.76), tenaadam19.59 (95% CI: 7.54–31.63) and eucalyptus 4.71 (95% CI: 1.16–8.26). Mothers’ previous history of self-medication (95% CI: 1.91, 51.35), illness during pregnancy (95% CI: 1.56, 23.91), employment status (95% CI: 3.89, 10.89), education (95% CI: 1.52, 2.68) and place of residence (95% CI: 1.86, 3.23) were significantly associated with herbal medicine use by women during pregnancy.

Conclusion: In current study, the prevalence of herbal medicine use among pregnant women attending antenatal care was comparatively high. The most commonly used herbal medicines during pregnancy were ginger followed by damakasse, garlic, tenaadam and eucalyptus.

This study increased our understanding of potential health risks by focusing on patterns of herbal medicinal plant use and predictors of herbal medicinal use during pregnancy among Ethiopian women.

Keywords: Pregnant women, Herbal medicine, Antenatal care, Ethiopia