Pleasant smell may reduce apnoea

Premature newborns have a heightened risk of sleep apnoea, brief periods when they stop breathing, but pumping a pleasant odour into their incubators seems to reduce the frequency of such spells.Researchers from the Centre Hospitalier Regional Universitaire de Hautepierre in Strasbourg, France, attempted to verify whether the stimulating effect of a pleasant odour could counterbalance, at least partly, the respiratory fall observed during apnoeic spells. Over a 24-hour period, the investigators diffused a pleasant odour (vanillin) into the incubators of 14 infants born at 24 to 28 weeks into pregnancy who had recurrent apnoea despite medical therapy. Overall, odour therapy led to a 36 percent reduction in the rate of apnoeas in 12 of the infants. The average number of apnoea episodes rose again when the odour therapy was stopped. There did not appear to be any adverse effects from odour therapy. Daily respiratory rates and heart rates appeared to remain stable regardless of whether the infant was exposed to odour.
The researchers said that they could not fully explain the efficacy of vanillin in these cases. Nonetheless, it appeared that the introduction of a pleasant odour in the incubator was helpful to the infants and should be explored further.