Plantas medicinais usadas no tratamento de doenças ginecológicas no nordeste do brasil: uma revisão

Abstract

Women's health care represents a fundamental part of strengthening women's care practices, and there is a great diversity of plants that can help in these biological conditions. Thus, this study aimed to record, through a literature survey, the main medicinal plants used in the treatment of gynecological diseases in Northeast Brazil, based on articles published between the years 2000 to 2021. For this research, we used the databases: Scientific Electronic Library Online – SciELO, academic google, Scopus, Web of Science, with the following keywords: ethnobotany and woman, “medicinal and woman”, medicinal and gynecological, “medicinal plants” and northeast and ethnobotany and caatinga. Ethnobotanical works dealing with the use of medicinal plants for the treatment of gynecological diseases were researched. A total of 47 articles were selected for this review, 269 plant species were observed, the most cited were: Astronium urundeuva (Allemão) Engl. (15 citations), Ruta graveolens L. (14), Ximenia americana L. (13), Anacardium occidentale L. (10), Ageratum conyzoides L., Scoparia dulcis L. (8) and Plantago major L., Plectranthus amboinicus (Lour.) Spreng, Schinus terebinthifolia Raddi (6). The main species are mostly (66.67%) native. A total of 133 gynecological problems were recorded and the main ones were: uterine inflammation (with 85 citations), followed by abortifacient use and vaginal discharge (62), inflammation (57) and menstrual cramps (53). In general, little is known about the use of plant resources and this work aims to synthesize knowledge about the diversity of plants and cultural uses in the region, as well as a better understanding of the usefulness of plants in the treatment of gynecological diseases.