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Consumption of indigenous medicines by pregnant women in North India for selecting sex of the foetus: what can it lead to?

BACKGROUND: Sex ratio is an important indicator of development. Despite all the measures undertaken for improvement, it remains an issue of concern in India, with Haryana having a very low sex ratio in the country. Studies have been conducted indicating that consumption of indigenous drugs used for...

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Autores principales: Neogi, Sutapa Bandyopadhyay, Negandhi, Preeti H., Ganguli, Abhijit, Chopra, Sapna, Sandhu, Navraj, Gupta, Ravi Kant, Zodpey, Sanjay, Singh, Amarjeet, Singh, Arun, Gupta, Rakesh
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4560877/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26341639
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12884-015-0647-4
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author Neogi, Sutapa Bandyopadhyay
Negandhi, Preeti H.
Ganguli, Abhijit
Chopra, Sapna
Sandhu, Navraj
Gupta, Ravi Kant
Zodpey, Sanjay
Singh, Amarjeet
Singh, Arun
Gupta, Rakesh
author_facet Neogi, Sutapa Bandyopadhyay
Negandhi, Preeti H.
Ganguli, Abhijit
Chopra, Sapna
Sandhu, Navraj
Gupta, Ravi Kant
Zodpey, Sanjay
Singh, Amarjeet
Singh, Arun
Gupta, Rakesh
author_sort Neogi, Sutapa Bandyopadhyay
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Sex ratio is an important indicator of development. Despite all the measures undertaken for improvement, it remains an issue of concern in India, with Haryana having a very low sex ratio in the country. Studies have been conducted indicating that consumption of indigenous drugs used for sex selection (SSD) could be strongly associated with adverse effects on the foetal development, including congenital malformations. Some samples of SSDs were collected from parts of North India and analysed in a standard laboratory for its components. METHODS: Thirty SSDs used by the local community were procured from various sources in north India through a rigorous process of collection. These were subjected to laboratory tests to investigate the presence of phytoestrogen and testosterone. Following sample extraction, thin layer chromatography and high performance liquid chromatography were carried out for analysing phytoestrogen content. RESULTS: SSDs were available in various forms such as powder, tablets, mostly from faith healers. Around 87 % of the samples collected from sources like doctors, quacks and faith healers were to be taken by the pregnant women after conception; 63 % drugs were strongly positive for phytoestrogens (genistein, daidzein, formononetin) and 20 % drugs were positive for testosterone. The average dose of the components as calculated after analyses was as follows: daidzein - 14.1 mg/g sample, genistein - 8.6 mg/g sample, formononetin - 5 mg/g sample. CONCLUSION: These SSDs could be potentially detrimental to the growth and development of the foetus. This is likely to have implications on the health of the community. In view of the results obtained in our study, we strongly attest the importance in curbing this harmful practice by banning the supply of the drugs as well as by advocating behavioural changes in the community.
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spelling pubmed-45608772015-09-06 Consumption of indigenous medicines by pregnant women in North India for selecting sex of the foetus: what can it lead to? Neogi, Sutapa Bandyopadhyay Negandhi, Preeti H. Ganguli, Abhijit Chopra, Sapna Sandhu, Navraj Gupta, Ravi Kant Zodpey, Sanjay Singh, Amarjeet Singh, Arun Gupta, Rakesh BMC Pregnancy Childbirth Research Article BACKGROUND: Sex ratio is an important indicator of development. Despite all the measures undertaken for improvement, it remains an issue of concern in India, with Haryana having a very low sex ratio in the country. Studies have been conducted indicating that consumption of indigenous drugs used for sex selection (SSD) could be strongly associated with adverse effects on the foetal development, including congenital malformations. Some samples of SSDs were collected from parts of North India and analysed in a standard laboratory for its components. METHODS: Thirty SSDs used by the local community were procured from various sources in north India through a rigorous process of collection. These were subjected to laboratory tests to investigate the presence of phytoestrogen and testosterone. Following sample extraction, thin layer chromatography and high performance liquid chromatography were carried out for analysing phytoestrogen content. RESULTS: SSDs were available in various forms such as powder, tablets, mostly from faith healers. Around 87 % of the samples collected from sources like doctors, quacks and faith healers were to be taken by the pregnant women after conception; 63 % drugs were strongly positive for phytoestrogens (genistein, daidzein, formononetin) and 20 % drugs were positive for testosterone. The average dose of the components as calculated after analyses was as follows: daidzein - 14.1 mg/g sample, genistein - 8.6 mg/g sample, formononetin - 5 mg/g sample. CONCLUSION: These SSDs could be potentially detrimental to the growth and development of the foetus. This is likely to have implications on the health of the community. In view of the results obtained in our study, we strongly attest the importance in curbing this harmful practice by banning the supply of the drugs as well as by advocating behavioural changes in the community. BioMed Central 2015-09-04 /pmc/articles/PMC4560877/ /pubmed/26341639 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12884-015-0647-4 Text en © Neogi et al. 2015 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Neogi, Sutapa Bandyopadhyay
Negandhi, Preeti H.
Ganguli, Abhijit
Chopra, Sapna
Sandhu, Navraj
Gupta, Ravi Kant
Zodpey, Sanjay
Singh, Amarjeet
Singh, Arun
Gupta, Rakesh
Consumption of indigenous medicines by pregnant women in North India for selecting sex of the foetus: what can it lead to?
title Consumption of indigenous medicines by pregnant women in North India for selecting sex of the foetus: what can it lead to?
title_full Consumption of indigenous medicines by pregnant women in North India for selecting sex of the foetus: what can it lead to?
title_fullStr Consumption of indigenous medicines by pregnant women in North India for selecting sex of the foetus: what can it lead to?
title_full_unstemmed Consumption of indigenous medicines by pregnant women in North India for selecting sex of the foetus: what can it lead to?
title_short Consumption of indigenous medicines by pregnant women in North India for selecting sex of the foetus: what can it lead to?
title_sort consumption of indigenous medicines by pregnant women in north india for selecting sex of the foetus: what can it lead to?
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4560877/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26341639
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12884-015-0647-4
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