EFFECTS OF VITEX AGNUS CASTUS ON MICE FETUS DEVELOPMENT

Vitex agnus castus (chasteberry) is a popular treatment for the management of femalereproductive disorders including corpus luteum insufficiency, premenstrual syndrome (pms),menopausal symptoms, and insufficient milk production. according to developing situation ofcomplementary medicine, and frequent use of this herb, it is important to examine its effects duringpregnancy. in this research we studied its effects on mice development, and we focused on macroscopicparameters, such as crl (crown-rump length) and the weight of embryos, and diameter and theweight of placenta, and microscopic parameters such as the diameters of eye and lens of embryos. wefound that vitex has special effects during different stages of mice development, for example it canimprove the growth of embryos in 8th and 9th day of pregnancy (it causes significant increase in crland weight of embryos). also, it may changes some microscopic parameters. these founding suggestthat it should be used more cautiously during pregnancy.