C  2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Birth Defects Research (Part B) 0:1–6 (2015) Research Article Effect of Himatanthus sucuuba in Maternal Reproductive Outcome and Fetal Anomaly Frequency in Rats Thaigra de Sousa Soares, 1 D´ ebora Cristina Damasceno, 2 Wilma De Grava Kempinas, 3 Fl´ avia Mayara Campos Resende, 1 Maria Aparecida Correa dos Santos, 4 Cl´ elia Akiko Hiruma-Lima, 5 and Gustavo Tadeu Volpato 1,2* 1 Laboratory of System Physiology and Reproductive Toxicology, Institute of Biological and Health Sciences, Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT), Barra do Garc ¸as, Mato Grosso State, Brazil 2 Laboratory of Experimental Research on Gynecology and Obstetrics, Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Univ Estadual Paulista Unesp, Botucatu, S ˜ ao Paulo State, Brazil 3 Department of Morphology, Institute of Biosciences of Botucatu, Univ Estadual Paulista (Unesp), Botucatu, S ˜ ao Paulo State, Brazil 4 Instituto Estadual de Pesquisa do Amap ´ a (IEPA), Amap´ a State, Brazil 5 Department of Physiology, Institute of Biosciences of Botucatu, Univ Estadual Paulista (Unesp), Botucatu, S˜ ao Paulo State, Brazil The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of Himatanthus sucuuba on the maternal reproductive outcome and fetal anomaly incidence in rats. Pregnant rats were randomly divided into three experimental groups as follows: Control = treated with water (vehicle), treated 250 = treated with H. sucuuba at dose 250 mg/kg, and treated 500 = treated with H. sucuuba at dose 500 mg/kg. The rats were orally treated, by gavage, with H. sucuuba or vehicle (water) during preim- plantation and organogenic period (from gestational day 0–14). At day 21 of pregnancy, all rats were killed to obtain maternal–fetal data. The treatment with H. sucuuba at dose of 250 mg/kg caused reduction in placental efficiency and an increase preimplantation loss rate and placenta weight compared with the control. The treated 500 group presented a significant decrease in maternal weight gain, maternal weight gain minus gravid uterus weight, fetal weight, and pla- cental efficiency compared with the control. In this group, there was a decrease in body weight at day 20 of pregnancy and metacarpus ossification and an increase in the preimplantation loss rate and skeletal anomalies compared with other groups. Himatanthus sucuuba extract caused intrauterine growth restriction, preimplantation loss, and developmental de- lay in the high doses tested. Birth Defects Res (Part B) 0:1–6, 2015. C  2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Key words: Himatanthus sucuuba; pregnancy; reproductive outcome; mal- formation; rats INTRODUCTION In traditional medicine, women are the most frequent users of herbal medicines (Hall et al., 2011). Herbal medicines are used by women to treat many reproduc- tive health problems, such as menstrual problems, infer- tility, and discomforts and dysfunctions of pregnancy, la- bor, and menopause (Kennedy et al., 2013). These plants are consumed mostly based on personal experience or tra- ditional knowledge, and in most cases, it is unclear how safe their use is during pregnancy (Oliaee et al., 2014). Himatanthus sucuuba (Spruce) Woodson is an arbus- tive plant belonging to the Apocynaceae family, which grows in the Amazon regions of Colombia, Peru, and Brazil. This plant is also known as “janaguba,” “sucuba,” “sucuuba,” and “Bellaco-Caspi” (Villegas et al., 1997; De Miranda et al., 2000; Silva et al., 2007). Latex and stem bark of H. sucuuba consist of triterpenes, -amyrin, and lu- peol esters in addition to the iridoids, plumericin, and iso- plumericin in chemical studies (De Miranda et al., 2000; Wood et al., 2001). It has been used in folk medicine as vermifuge, antitumoral, antifungal, analgesic, antiulcer, and antiarthritic drug (Elisabetsky and Castilhos, 1990, Villegas et al., 1997; Silva et al., 2007). Studies reported ∗ Correspondence to: Gustavo Tadeu Volpato, Laborat´ orio FisioTox, Instituto de Ciˆ encias Biol´ ogicas e da Sa´ ude—UFMT, Av. Valdon Varj˜ ao, 6390, 78600- 000, Barra do Garc ¸as, Mato Grosso, Brasil. E-mail: gtvolpato@yahoo.com Grant sponsor: FAPEMAT/Brazil; Grant number: 453362/2009. Received 12 June 2015; Accepted 09 August 2015 Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ bdrb) DOI: 10.1002/bdrb.21152