Peppermint Oil Effective for Itching during Pregnancy

by | Jan 12, 2016 | 2012, Essential Oils, Pregnancy and Lactation, Women's Health

Written by Greg Arnold, DC, CSCS. Researchers found an 81% decrease in itchy discomfort in pregnant women treated with peppermint oil.

Of the many discomforts women can experience during pregnancy, from morning sickness to fatigue to low back pain, as many as 8% of pregnant will experience severe itching, also called Pruritus Gravidarum (PG). PG usually begins in late second to early third trimester of pregnancy (average = 31 weeks of gestation) with the abdomen being the primary site of involvement and eventual spread to the chest and arms/legs (1). PG can have a significant effect on quality of life by causing irritation, restlessness, and loss of sleep (2).

Current approaches to treating PG include comfortable baths or cooling lotions such as menthol in aqueous cream, emulsions, primrose oil, and calamine lotion (3, 4, 5). Prescription drugs called H1/H2-receptor antagonists are also used and focus on blocking histamine. But the desire to avoid prescription drugs makes this a less favorable option for pregnant women (6, 7).

Now a recent study (8) suggests that peppermint oil may be a very affordable and effective treatment for PG during pregnancy. In the study, 96 pregnant women diagnosed with PG were given a bottle containing 60 mL of 0.5% peppermint oil (47 subjects) or a placebo (49 subjects) to be applied over the areas of itching twice per day for 2 weeks. Itch severity was recorded using the visual analog scale, a rating system that asks patients to mark their severity of pain on a scale from 0 to 10. The researchers classified a score of 1 to 3 as “mild”, 4 to 7 as “moderate”, and 8 to 10 as “severe”.

After 2 weeks, the peppermint oil group showed a significant decrease in itch severity compared to the placebo group. Specifically, across the entire group, the peppermint oil reduced visual analog scale scores by 81.6% (5.76 to 1.06) compared to a 45% decrease in the placebo group (5.90 to 3.25) (p = 0.03).  When looking at the 3 different severity classifications (mild, moderate, severe), there were no “mild” cases in either group at the start of the study.  For “moderate” cases, the peppermint group saw an 88.6% decrease (35 to 4) compared to a 65.8% decrease in the control group (35 to 12). For the “severe” cases, the peppermint group decreased by 83.4% (12 to 2) compared to a 50% decrease in the placebo group (14 to 7). Finally, the peppermint oil group ended up with 41 “mild” cases compared to 30 in the control group.

For the researchers, “it seems that peppermint oil can be effective in reducing the severity of Pruritus Gravidarum” but caution that “More studies with larger sample sizes are required to confidently declare the mentioned results.”

Greg Arnold is a Chiropractic Physician practicing in Hauppauge, NY.  You can contact Dr. Arnold directly by emailing him at PitchingDoc@msn.com or visiting his web site at www.PitchingDoc.com

Source: Akhavan Amjadi, Marjan, Faraz Mojab, and Seyedeh Bahareh Kamranpour. “The effect of peppermint oil on symptomatic treatment of pruritus in pregnant women.” Iranian Journal of Pharmaceutical Research 11.4 (2012): 1073-1077.

© 2012 by School of Pharmacy Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences and Health Services

Posted May 8, 2014.

References:

  1. Ingber A. Obstetric Dermatology. Springer Verlag, Berlin (2009) 97-109
  2. Peharda V, Gruber F, Kaštelan M, Brajac I and Čabrijan L. Pruritus an important symptom of internal diseases. Dermatovenerologica (2000) 9: 108-111.
  3. Fraser DM, Cooper A and Nolte AGW. Myles Textbook for Midwives. 14th ed., Elsevier, Edinburgh (2008) 299
  4. Jones SV and Black M. Pregnancy dermatomes. J. Am. Acad. Dermatal. (1999) 40: 233-241
  5. Twyeross R, Greaves MW, Handworker H, Jones EA, Libretto SE, Szepietowski JC and Zyliez Z. Itch: scratching more than the surface. Inter. J. Med. (2003) 96: 7-26
  6. Dawn A and Yosipovitch G. Treating itch in psoriasis. Dermatology Nursing (2006) 18: 227-234.
  7. Warren R and Heymann MD. Itch. J. Am. Acad. Dermatol. (2006) 54: 705-706
  8. Marjan Akhavan Amjadia .  Iranian Journal of Pharmaceutical Research (2012), 11 (4): 1073-1077