Galactogogue Herbs: Antioxidant Activity and Bioactive Compounds’ Content Determined from Aqueous Extracts

According to the WHO (World Health Organization), infants should be exclusively breastfed during the first 6 months of life in order to have optimal growth, physical and psychomotor development and health. Women all over the world exhibit breastfeeding problems, so a proper nutrition and lifestyle are needed. To stimulate the lactation process, the consumption of a substance, a food or a plant called galactogogue should be taken into account. Even if galactogogue plants are well-known, the scientific literature is still in continuous development. This study aimed to determine the antioxidant activity and the content of bioactive compounds of such herbs, known for their ability to improve or to increase lactation. Four different extraction methods, such as maceration, infusion, decoction and microwave assisted extraction (MAE) were used to obtain aqueous extracts from eight different galactogogue plants. Because the use of plants is desireable especially for their galactogenic properties, the organic solvents were limited, due to safety reasons and so water extraction methods were the most appropriate. The extracts were characterized by their antioxidant activity using 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and diammonium 2,2’-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonate) cation (ABTS) assays and also for their total phenolic content (TPC) and total flavonoid content (TFC). The optimization of the extraction processes was modelled by using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) simulation. Three of eight plants, anise (Pimpinella anisum L.), lemon balm (Melissa officinalis L.) and thyme (Thymus serpyllum L.) showed significant antioxidant activity with DPPH inhibition values between 79.68% ± 0.0025 and 86.72% ± 0.0065. The provided information will allow health care professionals to choose the proper galactogogue plant or combination of plants to sustain the breastfeeding act.