Abstract
In Libya, mothers commonly use natural products for their infants. The purpose of this survey was to evaluate the level of awareness of mothers using natural products for their infants, a validated questionnaire-based survey was distributed for mothers in several hospitals, the selected random group included 152 mothers of infants aged from day one birth to one year old, an analysis of the data revealed that 68% of mothers were using natural products and the most predominant age was between 20 - 30 years, 63% were living in Tripoli and 52% were undergraduate level of education. Further statistical analysis was revealed a significant difference for measuring the degree of awareness of all the natural products combined together (p = 0.001) and a similar degree of significant difference to the degree of awareness of each natural product alone (p = 0.001). A correlation coefficient test by Spearman was preformed to evaluate if there is any association between participants’ demographic data and the question which measures the level of mothers’ awareness. The results showed that mothers have no awareness on how to use these natural products and no correlation between the participants’ demographic data and the way the mothers use these natural products, except between the fennel and the education level (p = 0.033, p < 0.05, respectively). In conclusion, mothers have no awareness on how to use natural products, an appropriate attention by health care providers should be given to nursing mothers for herbal use.