Objective To analyze the current status of studies related to motherwort——a traditional Chinese herb medicine, and its application in prevention and treatment of diseases. Methods We searched CBM, CNKI, WanFang Data, EMbase and Ovid (MEDLINE) from inception up to August 26th, 2016. Two reviewers independently screened literature. Then the included studies were categorized by publication time, published journals and research topics, and a descriptive analysis was conducted. Results 7 040 studies were included, of which 4 653 were on decoction pieces, 1017 on motherwort patent formula, 648 on herbal medicine and 722 on animal studies. A “triple-stage” increasing tendency was found in numbers of published studies. The top twelve journals publishing papers about motherwort were all Chinese journals. The top three high-frequently used prescription forms were electuary/granule, injection, and capsule. 263 papers about Chinese patent medicine mentioned motherwort injection, in which 48 were fundamental studies that reported the effects such as promoting uterus contraction, reducing whole-blood viscosity, improving myocardial ischemia, reperfusion injury and lymphatic microcirculation and 211 were clinical studies about the effectiveness and safety of motherwort injection on postpartum hemorrhage, post-abortion hemorrhage, coronary heart disease, cerebral infarction, heart failure and myocardial ischemia. Conclusion Studies on motherwort patent formula are fewer than that on decoction. Electuary/granule and injection are ascendant formulation of motherwort in clinical practice. The common indication of motherwort injection is postpartum hemorrhage. Motherwort injection was found to have multiple pharmacological effects but the levels and quality of evidence are low. More high-quality studies are required to provide strong evidence for clinical application of motherwort injection in future.