Measures of Olfaction During Pregnancy

It is commonly believed that women experience a heightened sense of smell during pregnancy. Profet (1992) argued that a heightened sense of smell during pregnancy would discourage women from ingesting possible toxins and dangerous substances. Previous research has also shown no difference in odor sensitivity between pregnant and non-pregnant women (Cameron 2007) and little difference in sensitivity across trimester (Ochsenbein-Kölble, von Mering, Zimmermann, & Hummel, 2007).  One study observed that pregnant women’s ability to identify some odors was superior to non-pregnant women, better but overall ability was not better (Cameron, 2007). This study aimed to explore thresholds and suprathreshold sensitivity to food odors during pregnancy, as well as memory for odors, which has not been studied previously. In the current study, 11 pregnant and 15 non-pregnant women completed two olfactory threshold tasks, two suprathreshold rating tasks and two odor memory tasks. The stimuli were both food and non-food odors. The results of this study showed no difference between pregnant and non pregnant women on threshold, suprathreshold or memory tasks. This study did not provide evidence for a heightened sense of smell during pregnancy. Future directions for this study could compare pregnant women by trimester.