Aromatherapy as an adjunctive therapy for neonatal abstinence syndrome: A pilot study

Abstract

Objective: To determine if aromatherapy added to the current standard of care for opioid withdrawal syndrome decreases hospitali-zation and need for opioid replacement in neonates.

Design: Nonblinded, randomized control trial.

Setting: Level 4 neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

Patients and participants: Thirty eight patients met inclusion criteria of greater than or equal to 36 weeks of gestation, history of in-trauterine opioid exposure, primary diagnosis of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), and parental permission to participate.

Interventions: Infants were randomized to either a standard therapy group or a standard therapy plus aromatherapy.

Main outcome measure(s): Duration of therapy and length of stay.

Results: Our pilot study showed that the use of aromatherapy in conjunction with standard therapy reduced the duration of medica-tion treatment by 41 percent and hospital length of stay in the NICU by 36 percent.

Conclusions: The use of aromatherapy appears to help mitigate symptoms of NAS and offers to be a viable treatment modality when used with conventional therapy.