A large percentage of the women in the study used herbal remedies during pregnancy--many of them without informing their doctor or midwife. Doctors or midwives should ask pregnant women if they use herbal remedies during pregnancy. Health care personnel should be open to discuss the use of herbal remedies during pregnancy and be able to give balanced information as the use is so widespread.

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The most commonly reported herbal drugs used during pregnancy were Floradix (iron-rich herbs), ginseng and valerian. No signs of unfavourable effect on pregnancy outcome were seen. The number of exposures, however, was low and therefore effects on rare outcomes (e.g. specific malformations) cannot be excluded.

AL amyloidosis is a fatal disease caused by deposition of immunoglobulin light chains in a fibrillarforin (AL) in various organs. By searching the Kabat database of immunoglobulin sequences using the KabatMan software, we have shown that there is a preponderance of the consensus glycosylation sequon (AsnXxxSer/Thr) in the framework regions of amyloid light chains. We have characterised by computer graphics simulations, NMR spectroscopy and carbohydrate biochemistry the structure and conformation of the oligosaccharide from amyloid protein AL MS (lamba1) and from the amyloid associated Bence Jones protein of patient MH (kappa1). These proteins have glycosylation in the hypervariable complementarity-determining region versus framework region, respectively. Both contained a 2-6 sialylated core fucosylated biantennary chain mostly with bisecting GIcNAc. Together our results suggest that light chain glycosylation may be one of several modifications which may render the protein more prone to amyloid formation.