Role of Anti-fertility Medicinal Plants on Male & Female Reproduction

Aim and Objective: The aim of this review was to provide a detailed concept to the researchers on antifertility activity of several plants inhibiting male and female fertility and may be developed into contraceptives. Despite of many medicinal plants have been claimed to prevent fertility, only few plants were so far been investigated for their antifertility activity.

Materials and Methods: An extensive bibliographic investigation was carried out by analyzing various classical text books, scientific journals, consulting worldwide accepted databases for providing suitable information on antifertility medicinal plants. Plant species traditionally used as contraceptives, abortifacients, emmenagogues, spermatogenics were considered as antifertility agents.

Results: Overall 233 plant species belonging to various families, traditionally used as antifertility agents in both males and females has been incorporated in this review. The various plant parts used in fertility regulation includes leaves, fruits, roots, bark, stem etc.

Conclusion: In conclusion, it is clear that medicinal plants play an important role as antifertility agents. Despite of various commercially available oral contraceptives in the market, herbal antifertility agents shows promising output by minimizing the number of adverse drug properties. Current research towards traditional medicine is growing rapidly because of its safety and less cost consumption.