Investigating the Effectiveness of Medicine Herbal in Cervical Ripening and Initiation of Labor: A Narrative Review

Introduction: Post-term pregnancy is among obstetric problems and the most common cause for induction of labor accompanied by increased maternal and fetal complications. Consequently, cervical ripening for induction and success of labor is critically important. Therefore, this review study was intended to investigate the impact of medicine herbal on cervical ripening and initiation of labor.Materials and Methods: The present study reviews the literature on the effectiveness of medicine herbal in cervical ripening and initiation of labor published between 1999 and 2018. To this end, the researcher first searched on databases ProQuest, Clinical Key, PubMed, Cochrane, Googlescholar, Scopus, SID, Irandoc, Iran Medex with the keywords like medicine herbal, cervical ripening and labor and finally, from among 20 articles, 14 articles were considered relevant with inclusion criteria.Findings: The results of current study indicated the positive effect of saffron (Crocus sativus L), date, sisymbrium, Peganum harmala smoke, castor oil, dill seeds, chamomile, Actaea racemosa (black cohosh) and cuichan zhunsheng on cervical ripening and initiation of labor. Research on evening primrose suggested that it had no effect on cervical ripening and leaves some complications such as prolonged ruptured membranes, declined fetal descent, and increased need for oxytocin.Discussion: Regarding the positive effect of several medicine herbal on cervical ripening and initiation of labor in the relevant literature and due to a limited number of studies, in order to assess the effectiveness of medicine herbal and their safety, studies with more clinical evidence are needed to verify their effectiveness.

کلیدواژه ها:

medicine Herbal ، pregnancy ، cervical ripening ، labor