Fragrant Pregnancy

By Kamyar M. Hedayat, MD
Web Exclusive - September 01, 2009

Introduction
If I asked you to describe pregnancy, would one of the words you used be fragrant? Probably not. If you think of ways of describing pregnancy, scent is probably not one of them. When women do remember the scents of pregnancy, they tend to use such words as putrid (after throwing up from morning sickness) or acrid (from acid reflux) or hircine (i.e., goat-like; from the smell of amniotic fluid and afterbirth). It would seem that there’s nothing fragrant about being pregnant or delivering a baby. But throughout history, sweet scents and medical aromatherapy have been integral parts of pregnancy for women throughout the world. Modern medical aromatherapy has proven to be a versatile, effective, and enjoyable way to make today’s pregnancies fragrant ones.

Therapeutic Aromatherapy
Aromatherapy is a 5,000-year-old healing art that has been used for many purposes, from worship to perfumery. In ancient times, because priests were also healers and perfumers, aromatherapy was employed to heal the body, mind, and spirit. What better or more blessed event is there than pregnancy for addressing a woman’s needs, from cell to soul, with medical aromatherapy?

Aromatherapy makes use of essential oils extracted from plants and animals. These oils can be made from any part of a plant or tree, including the roots, leaves, bark, berries, or flowers, and are extracted by steam, carbon dioxide, or compression. Essential oils are liquids that naturally turn into a gas at room temperature, thus transmitting a scent—hence the aroma in aromatherapy. An essential oil has dozens upon dozens of healing compounds, most of which have no scent at all but are every bit as important in the healing process. Medical aromatherapy is more than just another pretty scent.

In therapeutic or medical aromatherapy, medical-grade essential oils are used to treat specific physical or emotional problems. Medical-grade means that the highest quality of care has been taken in growing and harvesting the plants, making the essential oil, and giving the workers a living wage. When a slow, careful process is used to make essential oils, they have the broadest possible range of active compounds, resulting in the greatest therapeutic effects. Look for a statement of this criterion when purchasing aromatherapy products.

Using Aromatherapy Safely in Pregnancy
Recently, I led a seminar for clinical psychologists in the use of essential oils. When a pregnant intern heard that I would be passing around essential-oil blends, she ran out of the room, trembling at the thought that these “dangerous” scents might harm her baby. But the artificially scented candles, soaps, detergents, and shampoos that people use every day present a far greater risk of harming a fetus than the pure, therapeutic molecules found in plants. A recent study in the journal Pediatrics showed that using artificially scented shampoos led to increased amounts in the blood of neurotoxins that had been absorbed through the skin.¹ In other words, what goes on your skin goes into your blood, and what goes into your blood can affect your baby, for better or worse.

Essential oils should be treated as natural drugs, and every drug should be respected. The inhalation of pure, medical-grade essential oils is generally safe in pregnancy. However, if you have a history of seizures, avoid rosemary and hyssop essential oils. If you have high blood pressure (pre-existing or from preeclampsia), don’t use stimulating essential oils such as pine, juniper, grapefruit, black pepper, or rosemary internally, and avoid inhaling them directly from the bottle for more than 10 minutes per day.

When you inhale pure essential oils directly, do so from the cap instead of the bottle, so that the effect will be more gentle. To use aromatherapy blends on the skin, make a mixture of 1 to 5 percent, or as directed by an experienced aromatherapist. (A 5 percent mixture is five drops per teaspoon of oil; a 1 percent mixture is one drop in one teaspoon. Olive, sweet almond, and jojoba oils are the best blending oils to use.) Essential oils should be used internally only under the guidance of an experienced integrative healthcare provider.

Fragrant Pregnancy Today
From conception to delivery, aromatherapy can be an enjoyable part of pregnancy for a mother and her baby. Babies not yet born can smell what their mothers smell, and remember those smells after birth. Recent studies have confirmed this, and researchers have coined the term smell memory to describe it.² In a future article, “The Fragrant Baby,” I will talk about how you can get a fussy baby to eat through smell memory and smell training. Aromatherapy can be a child’s first introduction to the natural world outside the womb, and can create an appreciation for nature and natural things that can remain deep in the baby’s soul.