Presentation Details
| Subjective and Objective Measures of Olfaction in Pregnancy E.Leslie Cameron. Carthage College, Kenosha, WI, USA |
Abstract
Most pregnant women report a heightened sense of smell, but superior performance on standard objective measures of olfaction has rarely been reported. In this study, differences in odor perception between pregnant and non-pregnant women, using several subjective and objective tests, were explored. Twenty pregnant and 20 non-pregnant women completed a survey that included rating their sense of smell and reporting symptoms of nausea and vomiting using the Pregnancy-Unique Quantification of Emesis (PUQE) questionnaire. Pregnant women were also asked to identify odors to which they were more sensitive. All participants completed 3 olfaction tasks: a novel 22-trial odor discrimination task using the triangle method with primarily common food items; a 22-odor naming and rating task, and an amyl acetate odor detection task using the method of constant stimuli. There was no significant difference between non-pregnant and pregnant women’s pre-pregnancy ratings of sense of smell, but pregnant women rated their sense of smell significantly higher than before pregnancy and than non-pregnant controls. Moreover, 95% of pregnant women identified specific odors to which they were more sensitive and their PUQE scores were significantly higher than controls. However, pregnant women did not differ from controls in their odor discrimination performance (overall performance was ~78%), nor in their ability to detect amyl acetate (overall performance was ~ 68%). There were no differences between groups in average ratings of odor intensity, familiarity nor pleasantness and pregnant women were no better at naming odors. The results of this study highlight the questionable relationship between subjective and objective measures of olfaction and leave open the question: What changes in odor perception during pregnancy?
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.
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