Traditional Medicine and Childcare in Western Africa: Mothers’ Knowledge, Folk Illnesses, and Patterns of Healthcare-Seeking Behavior

Towns, Alexandra M.; Eyi, Sandra Mengue; Andel, Tinde van

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0105972

Cited by 52 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…women 10 , breastfeeding children 11, ,children with chronic health conditions 12 , the paediatric age group in general, 13,14 medical inpatients , outpatients ,HIV patients , 15 and the general population 16,17,18 . However, no studies have focused on the use of herbal medicine among the neonates and infants less than 6 months .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Traditional herbal medicines used in neonates and infants less than six months old in Lagos Nigeria

Nwaiwu¹,

Oyelade²

2016

Nig. J. Paed.

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Abstract:Background: Herbal medicine use in children , adults and other groups have been documented but little information is known about the use herbal medicine mixtures in neonates and infants less than six months old. This is important because pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics changes between infants and adults may result in age-related differences in drug metabolism. This study was carried out to document the herbal medicines used for common ailments in neonates and infants less than six months in Lagos, Nigeria. Methods: With the aid of questionnaires and personal interviews during field trips to herbal medicine markets and infant welfare clinics a survey was undertaken to collect information on herbal medicine use by neonates and infants less than six months from traditional healers and nursing mothers during July and September 2014. Demographic Information and types of herbal medicines used by the respondents, indications for their use and adverse effects of the herbal medicines they used were obtained. Results:Medicinal plant species used for the treatment of common ailments including diarrhea , abdominal cramps , skin rashes, Fever (malaria) , jaundice, convulsions, Insomnia and weight loss in neonates and infants less than 6months were documented. A high percentage of the mothers (72%) agreed they used herbal medicines in neonates and infants, although 96% of them did not notice any adverse effect while 100% of the mothers perceived the herbs to be efficacious. Herbal medicines are administered as a polyherbal compound, containing 4-6 plants Conclusion: The use of herbal medicines is common amongst neonates and infants less than six months old . Further studies on the efficacy and safety of these medicines which are administered as polyherbal mixtures is recommended.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Traditional herbal medicines used in neonates and infants less than six months old in Lagos Nigeria

Nwaiwu¹,

Oyelade²

2016

Nig. J. Paed.

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“…The Afro-Surinamese plant names in the Natrapland database were then compared with local names in Amerindian and European languages from the same region (37,70,72) and African names for botanically related taxa (on family, genus, and species levels) documented from the principal geographical sources of Surinamese slaves, by using Burkill's compendium on useful plants of West Tropical Africa (73); literature from the Prelude Medicinal Plants Database (74); a revision on sesame use (75); and literature from Benin (76,77), Ghana (78), Nigeria (62), Cameroon (79), Gabon (80,81), Congo (82,83), and Angola (60,84). Our comparison also included African plant names documented during recent fieldwork by the authors in Ghana (47), Benin, and Gabon (85)(86)(87)(88). We excluded African languages that were not widely represented in the transatlantic slave trade, such as Sahelian and Pygmy languages.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local plant names reveal that enslaved Africans recognized substantial parts of the New World flora

Andel

Klooster

Quiroz

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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How did the forced migration of nearly 11 million enslaved Africans to the Americas influence their knowledge of plants? Vernacular plant names give insight into the process of species recognition, acquisition of new knowledge, and replacement of African species with American ones. This study traces the origin of 2,350 Afro-Surinamese (Sranantongo and Maroon) plant names to those plant names used by local Amerindians, Europeans, and related groups in West and Central Africa. We compared vernacular names from herbarium collections, literature, and recent ethnobotanical fieldwork in Suriname, Ghana, Benin, and Gabon. A strong correspondence in sound, structure, and meaning among Afro-Surinamese vernaculars and their equivalents in other languages for botanically related taxa was considered as evidence for a shared origin. Although 65% of the Afro-Surinamese plant names contained European lexical items, enslaved Africans have recognized a substantial part of the neotropical flora. Twenty percent of the Sranantongo and 43% of the Maroon plant names strongly resemble names currently used in diverse African languages for related taxa, represent translations of African ones, or directly refer to an Old World origin. The acquisition of new ethnobotanical knowledge is captured in vernaculars derived from Amerindian languages and the invention of new names for neotropical plants from African lexical terms. Plant names that combine African, Amerindian, and European words reflect a creolization process that merged ethnobotanical skills from diverse geographical and cultural sources into new Afro-American knowledge systems. Our study confirms the role of Africans as significant agents of environmental knowledge in the New World.

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“…Like most people in rural communities in developing countries who are comparatively far from government-provided healthcare facilities (e.g., Towns et al 2014), the people of Bua employ a blend of western and traditional remedies for many of their ailments. A prolonged discussion with one community nurse confirmed people's trust in traditional medicine 2 .…”

Section: Appendix A3 Government Services and Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring Peripherality as a Proxy for Autonomous Community Coping Capacity: A Case Study from Bua Province, Fiji Islands, for Improving Climate Change Adaptation

Nunn

Kumar

2019

Social Sciences

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Over the past thirty years, externally-driven interventions for climate-change adaptation in rural Pacific Island contexts have largely failed to be effective or sustained. One reason is that traditional (culturally-grounded) autonomous community coping capacity has been overlooked, many external agencies viewing all such communities as both homogenous and helpless. A community’s autonomous coping capacity can be proxied by peripherality, a measure of the degree to which a particular community in archipelagic (island) countries engages with core agendas. In order to gauge the depth, breadth and efficacy of autonomous coping capacity, three indices of community peripherality were developed from research within thirteen communities in (peripheral-biased) Bua Province in Fiji. Index 1 concerns geography (travel time/cost to town), Index 2 concerns population and employment (community size, age distribution, employment), and Index 3 concerns tradition and global awareness (mobile phones per capita, traditional/western healthcare preferences, inherent coping capacity, diet, water and energy security). Mapping of Indices 1–3 allows the nature of community peripherality in Bua to be captured using a readily-reproducible tool for rapid assessment in similar contexts. It is demonstrated that an understanding of peripherality (as a proxy for autonomous community coping capacity) can inform the design of future interventions for climate-change adaptation.

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Traditional Medicine and Childcare in Western Africa: Mothers’ Knowledge, Folk Illnesses, and Patterns of Healthcare-Seeking Behavior

Cited by 52 publications

References 31 publications

Traditional herbal medicines used in neonates and infants less than six months old in Lagos Nigeria

Traditional herbal medicines used in neonates and infants less than six months old in Lagos Nigeria

Local plant names reveal that enslaved Africans recognized substantial parts of the New World flora

Measuring Peripherality as a Proxy for Autonomous Community Coping Capacity: A Case Study from Bua Province, Fiji Islands, for Improving Climate Change Adaptation

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