Roughly 1 in 10 pregnant women in the U.S. expose their unborn baby to herbal products, according to a new study.
This finding is potentially concerning, researchers say, given that data on the safety of herbal use during pregnancy is lacking. Furthermore, the prevalence of exposure was highest in the first 3 months of pregnancy, a critical period of development.
"If we assume that our study sample was representative of the 4.2 million births each year in the United States, our findings project that 9.4 percent, or potentially 395,000 U.S. births annually, will involve exposure to at least one herbal product during pregnancy," lead author Dr. Cheryl S. Broussard, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, told Reuters Health by email.
The findings, reported in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, are based on data from 4,239 mothers in the National Birth Defects Prevention Study who delivered liveborn infants with no major birth defects from 1998 to 2004. The 10 study centers were located across the U.S.
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