Sweet Vanilla Scent Reduces Injection Pain during anesthesia for maxillary molars in Children: Study
A study found that a 2% sweet vanilla scent effectively distracted children aged 7-9 years, reducing injection pain during infiltration anesthesia for maxillary molars. The findings suggest that simple sensory interventions may help ease pediatric dental anxiety and discomfort.
Published in Journal of Integrative & Complementary Medicine (Shadman et al., 2025), the randomized, double-blind, controlled trial involved 48 children in need of local anesthesia for primary maxillary molars.
The children were split into three groups: a control group with no scent, a group that received anesthesia in a room filled with 2% vanilla scent, and a group exposed to the vanilla scent for 30 seconds before injection. Pain was assessed using both subjective scales (Wong-Baker Faces Pain Rating Scale) and objective scales (FLACC behavioural pain scale), along with physiological measures like heart rate and oxygen saturation. Results showed significantly lower FLACC scores and reduced heart rates in the scented intervention groups compared to control. Oxygen saturation was also better when using the scented room condition. However, the Wong-Baker self-report scores did not differ significantly across groups.
What this really means is that vanilla aromatherapy, which costs little and is easy to implement, could be a useful non-pharmacological strategy in pediatric dentistry. Though subjective pain didn’t always change, the behavioural and physiological responses suggest that children experienced less distress. The authors do note the need for larger trials and testing in other age ranges to confirm and generalize the findings.
