For women who cannot take commercial contraceptives for health or other reasons or cannot access them, North-West University (NWU) researchers and traditional health practitioners from the North West province are exploring alternatives: the use of medicinal plants.
The project is a multistakeholder collaboration led by Dr Arthur Moroole, a postdoctoral research fellow at the NWU, under the mentorship of Prof Simeone Materechera and Prof Oladapo Aremu of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) Centre.
The research, which entailed investigating and documenting the possible use of medicinal plants for contraception, was carried out in collaboration with a group of traditional health practitioners in Ngaka Modiri Molema district municipality.
In his research, Dr Moroole identified 23 medicinal plants reported to be used for contraception in South Africa. He also investigated medicinal plants used specifically by the Batswana in Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality. The analysis and testing were conducted with the assistance of the NWU chemistry department, the NWU Pharmacen™ research entity and the DSI/NWU Preclinical Drug Development Platform.
Plant-based contraceptives used as tea
The research revealed that medicinal plants used for contraception in the municipality are mostly administered as tea and can be made with extracts from a single plant species or several species and used in herbal mixtures (concoctions).
One herbal mixture, consisting of three medicinal plants and taken orally, was selected for investigation. A traditional health practitioner with knowledge and experience of medicinal plants used for contraception in the study area assisted with the collection of the three plant species.
Dr Moroole investigated the phytochemical profile of the herbal mixture using modern techniques of phytochemical analysis. Thereafter, he tested the herbal mixture on rodents.
The investigations showed that the herbal mixture has bioactive compounds with contraceptive activity. The mixture had no toxic effects on cells and its safety was impressive, as there was no morbidity or mortality among the test animals. However, the herbal mixture showed low contraceptive efficacy when administered orally once a day for three consecutive days on female rats. This indicates that it must be taken more often than once a day for longer periods and at higher doses.
These results suggest there is great potential to develop safe and efficacious herbal contraceptives from natural extracts of local plants. This could result in contraceptive alternatives for women who have problems with or lack access to modern contraceptives. Furthermore, medicinal plant extracts that reduce sex hormone levels are potential agents in discovering and developing herbal hormonal contraceptives.
About the researcher
Dr Arthur Moroole is currently a DSI/NRF innovation postdoctoral research fellow at the IKS Centre. His postdoctoral research specifically focuses on medicinal plants used for male contraception, female emergency contraception and those used to terminate a pregnancy (abortifacients). He also wants to determine the effects of these plants on reproductive hormones and reproductive organs, as guided by laboratory and animal experiments.
Another area he plans to investigate is the effects of storage and packaging on the quality, safety and efficacy of these plants and their extracts.
Traditional health practitioners play a critical role in the documentation, interpretation, dissemination and application of indigenous contraception. As such, it is his wish that traditional health practitioners participating in the study be well compensated, acknowledged in research outputs and gain scientific knowledge and skills from the project.
Dr Arthur Moroole
