Hindawi Publishing Corporation Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Volume 2013, Article ID 438139, 10 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/438139 Research Article Herbal Medicines: Malaysian Women’s Knowledge and Practice Law Kim Sooi 1 and Soon Lean Keng 2 1 Advanced Medical & Dental Institute, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 13200 Kepala Batas, Penang, Malaysia 2 School of Health Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 16150 Kelantan, Malaysia Correspondence should be addressed to Law Kim Sooi; lawks@amdi.usm.edu.my Received 26 February 2013; Revised 22 July 2013; Accepted 25 July 2013 Academic Editor: Byung-Cheul Shin Copyright © 2013 L. Kim Sooi and S. Lean Keng. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. his is a cross-sectional, descriptive study among Malay women admitted in the antenatal and postnatal ward to determine the prevalence and use of herbal medicines during pregnancy and elemental analysis in the most popular herbs. A total of 460 women were surveyed. Herbal medicine use during pregnancy was 34.3%, while 73% utilized herbal medicines during labor, because of a belief that it may shorten and ease labor. he most commonly used herbal medicines in pregnancy were Anastatica hierochuntica L. (60.1%) followed by coconut oil (35.4%). he majority of women (89.2%) used only one type of herbal medicines and took one capsule/glass (38%) per day. Herbal medicines use by pregnant women is largely unsupervised (81%), with most women getting information from their parents (60.7%) and buying the products directly from traditional midwives (32.2%) and 77% agreed upon its eicacy and safety. From the 460 respondents, 89.8% women were in the low end of the herbs knowledge. here was a signiicant diference found between knowledge score and income ( < 0.05). Microdifraction analysis revealed signiicant presence of carbon, oxygen, silica, calcium, magnesium, aluminium, potassium, zinc, and iron that were found in Anastatica hierochuntica L. and proved to have good beneits for pregnancy. 1. Introduction Traditional medicine or complementary and alternative med- icine (TM/CAM) is an integral part of the practice of ancient civilization to improve the health and well-being of people in countries such as India, China, Malaysia, and throughout the world [1]. he various modalities currently practiced are based on theory, beliefs, and experiences that are indigenous to the diferent cultures and developed and handed down from generation to generation [2]. Herbal medicine usage is not only popular among indi- viduals, but also among primary health care providers in developing countries. Herbal medicines are also practiced in countries where conventional medicines are predominant [3]. he World Health Organization [4] reported that 70% to 80% of the world population relies mainly on herbal sources for their primary medicines. A study by Matthews et al. [5] found that herbal medicines were used in many countries to treat pregnancy related illness and to encourage healthy pregnancies and overall well-being. Previous studies indi- cated that although the practice of herbal consumption in pregnancy was very popular, they reported a lack of evidence for the safety and eicacy of herbal medicines utilized dur- ing pregnancy [6–9]. Similarly, other studies showed that although herbal medicines were unproven scientiically, 4% to 62% of pregnant women continued to consume herbal medicines over their pregnancy period without the lack of knowledge about its safety and beneit [5, 9–11]. Malaysia is a multicultural country that has rich tradi- tional practice modalities. Among these modalities there is the use of herbal medicine for the treatment of various ailments during pregnancy [8, 9, 12]. Herbal medicines are becoming increasingly popular and are regarded as important to the public as well as to the scientiic community [13]. he beliefs of the majority of ethnic groups in the Malaysian population is that herbal products do not contain harmful chemicals and are free of side efects when compared to com- mercially available pharmaceutical drugs [9, 14]. In Malaysia, the uses of herbal medicines are based on practical experi- ences, observations, and rituals derived from socioreligious beliefs passed down from one generation to another. hese practices have been observed within the Malay communities