Systematic Review on Phytotherapy in Neonatology

Abstract

Background: There is an enormous economical significance of phytotherapy at least in Germany, the huge demand of patients was repeatedly proven. Simultaneously data exist for different application areas and ages as for younger children and pregnancy until birth. The actual neonatal period can be of interest because phytotherapy is used in younger children and until birth, it is not very likely that there is a gap in this period of life. Aim: To give an overview on the current literature on phytotherapy in neonatology. Methods: A systematic review was performed in the following databases: Cochrane, EM-BASE Alert, AMED, NCCAM, NLM, DIMDI, CAMbase, BIOSIS Previews, DAHTA, SciSearch, and Medline as well as in the archives of GMS, Karger, Kluwer, Thieme, Krause and Pachernegg, Wiley-Interscience/Phytotherapy Research, Springer and Merkurstab publishers. Keywords were neonatology, newborn, preterm, phytotherapy, phytomedicine, and herbal drugs in clinical randomized controlled studies. Results: We found 14 articles that fulfilled the inclusion criteria: 10 case control studies, 1 observational study, 1 study with interview, 1 with a questionnaire, and 1 retrospective study. Topics were aromatherapy, external applications, and internal effects of herbal teas. Conclusion: Indications, study design and explantory power of these publications were quite heterogeneous. Most promising was the study situation in aromatherapy. Due to the fact that phytotherapy is frequently used and there is a high demand of parents, methodologically excellent studies are needed to evaluate the significance of phytotherapy in the neonatal period. The aim is to fulfill scientific as well as economical needs. This review shows that there is no such evidence yet.

Comparison of the analgesic effect of inhaled lavender vs vanilla essential oil for neonatal frenotomy: a randomized clinical trial (NCT04867824)

“…Given the high power of our study (86.5%), we consider our results reliable. None of the prior aromatherapy studies performed in infants have described any side effects, for instance nausea, vomiting or chills [22,25,27,38]. In keeping in line with them, we also have observed no side effects from its use.…”

“…Several studies concluded that the use of a familiar odor (mainly breast milk, but also vanillin, present in VEO) helps to reduce agitation, apneas, and stress and adverse effects of neonatal pain [27,35,36]. Vanillin seems to be hedonically pleasant for full-term and preterm neonates, seems to in uence pain reaction, and may even be analgesic, especially if the infant has been previously exposed to its odor [26,27,33,37]. We did not sensitize neonates with the aroma of VEO because we performed the frenotomy when it was indicated, and thus there was no time to sensitize them prior to the procedure.…”

“…Our hypothesis was that signs of pain (mostly crying time and NIPS score) would be lower in the experimental group than in the control group. We chose LEO and VEO because these are the fragrances for which more studies have been performed in neonates and infants [3,4,6,12,17,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. As far as we know, there are no previous studies which have analyzed the potential bene t of LEO vs VEO to relieve pain in neonatal frenotomy.…”

Comparison of the analgesic effect of inhaled lavender vs vanilla essential oil for neonatal frenotomy: a randomized clinical trial (NCT04867824)

“…Several studies concluded that the use of a familiar odor (mainly breast milk, but also vanillin, present in VEO) helps to reduce agitation, apneas, and stress and adverse effects of neonatal pain [29,37,38]. Vanillin seems to be hedonically pleasant for full-term and preterm neonates, seems to influence pain reaction, and may even be analgesic, especially if the infant has been previously exposed to its odor [28,29,35,39]. We did not sensitize neonates with the aroma of VEO because we performed the frenotomy when it was indicated, and thus, there was no time to sensitize them prior to the procedure.…”

Studying of Electroencephalographic Signal Changes Induced by Odor Exposure

“…There are cases where the amount of α wave with higher frequency values increase during olfactory stimulation [7]. However, because of its effect in the human state of mind, the aromas are used in medicine [8], phytotherapy [9], and aromatherapy [10].…”