아로마 요법이 신생아의 스트레스 호르몬에 미치는 영향 = Effect of Aromatherapy on Neonatal Stress Hormone

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Aromatherapy, one of complementary medicine was known that specific essential oil extracted from plants affect emotion and physiology of human by transmission of smell signal from olfactory cells to limbic system of brain. This study was intended to reveal the effect of aromatherapy by comparison of stress hormone and vital sign between the aromatherapy group and the control group. From June, 2001 to August, 2002, the aromatherapy group(n=12) and the control group (n=13) were selected randomly in NICU, Chungnam National University Hospital. We applied aromatherapy to the aromatherapy group 3 times every 20 minutes for 7 days and 24 hours urine collection for free cortisol and epinephrine was performed day 0(before initial aromatherapy) and day 7(after the last aromatherapy). After aromatherapy, no difference of change of vital sign was noted in aromatherapy group. Epinephrine concentration after aromatherapy decreased from 1.28±1.13μg/d to 0.84±0.58μg/d(p-value<0.05). Free cortisol concentration after aromatherapy decreased from 4.74±3.99μg/d to 1.60±0.84μg/d.(p-value<0.05). At birth, there was a marked increase in plasma stress hormone and after birth, stress hormone of neonate except acute or chronic ill baby decrease gradually. But in aromatherpy group, neonatal stress hormone decreased faster than nonaromatherapy group.