Mental and Growth Retardation following Prenatal Exposure to Oral Bitter Leaf (Vernonia amygdalina) Extract in Developing Wistar Rats

Objective: The teratogenic influence of maternal exposure to bitter leaf on the morphology of foetal nervous system was studied. Methodology: In this study, we used twenty five pristine female Wistar rats of an average weight of 215g. The rats were distributed into 5 groups with each having 5 rats. A separate cage was used to keep each group. Overnight, the females were kept with sexually active male of the same species. The following morning, Vagina smears was done on the female to confirm coitus, the presence of tailed structures in the smears was taken as sperm positive day and was taken as day zero of pregnancy. 400mg/kg of bitter leaf were administered orally between gestational days 1-7 (group B), 8-14 (group C), 15-21 (group D) and 1-21 (group E). The control (group A) was administered 2.0ml/kg/bw of normal saline throughout pregnancy. After parturition, the brain and body weights of the litters were recorded on postnatal days 1, 7, 14, 21, 28 and 35.