Aromatherapy as a Nutrition Improvement Approach in Premature Infants: A Short Review

Background: Literature presented numerous methods to promote nutrition in premature newborns. The aim of the review is to promote nutrition in premature newborns using numerous methods which have been suggested by systematic review. Materials and Methods: Online databases including Scopus, Medline, Web of Science, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library were systematically searched to perform the present review. In this search date of publication was not considered and articles from the beginning until February 10, 2019 were included. The keywords of choice were "aromatherapy OR smell OR olfactory" AND "infants OR baby OR preterm OR premature". To evaluate the quality of the studies obtained by searching, Jadad scoring was utilized. Results: Finally, four studies were included for review. In the first study, babies in milk-odor group showed more bursts consisting of more than seven sucking attempts, longer sucking bouts and ingesting more volume of milk in comparison to the control group. According to observations in the second study, elevated number of sucks in the presence of breast milk odor was seen in six of 7 infants switched from tube feeding to full enteral feeds in less time. In the third study, olfactory stimulus shows gestational age-related variations in premature infants babies born prior to 31th week of gestation receiving mother's own milk stimulation were able to feed prior to the control group. In the fourth study, babies born after 31th week of gestation did not show significantly different in response to receiving MOM than control group. Conclusion: Aromatherapy improved feeding behavior by more sucking attempt, longer sucking