There’s a Friends episode (‘The One With The Baby On A Bus’) where Joey and Chandler use baby Ben as an olfactive lure to pick up women; 'He’s got that great baby smell. Get a whiff of his head.' And most of us can relate, because those fuzzy, odoriferous craniums are indeed utterly intoxicating. I still remember feeling slightly perplexed at requests by friends/family/strangers to nuzzle my newborn’s heads but at the same time I totally got it having previously been guilty myself of sniffing other people’s babies in a bid to drink in that warm, addictive, slightly umami/sweet scent. And addictive is probably the right adjective to use in this case as the smell of newborn babies has been found to trigger the same reward centres in the brain as drugs according to a study by neuroscientist, odor researcher, author and anatomy professor at University of Quebec Johannes Frasnelli. Why? It’s Mother Nature’s ploy to keep us hooked on the screaming, pooping, sleep thieves we might otherwise abandon. In fact, so potent is this clever biological trick that Frasnelli found it even works on women with no genetic ties to the infant (he didn’t include fathers in the test so we don’t know if its influence extends to men too). And of course, the power of scent works both ways; 'The newborn learns the scent of the mother in utero and post-birth the odour of the mother is a very strong stimulus to calm a baby down which fathers often discover if they use a t-shirt that mommy has worn when she is away,' says Frasnelli.
Which brings me onto the question of whether we should refrain from wearing fragrance around newborns in case it interferes with this precious olfactive interaction following a post by @mothernourishnature. Entitled 'Please don’t wear perfume around my baby' really shouldn’t be a controversial statement, but here we are,’ it went on to pose the question; ‘Did fragrances near your new baby bother you postpartum?’ And I was surprised to see that the responses were overwhelmingly in favour of abstaining and asking others to do the same (whilst I was very aware of my partners’ aftershave on both my boys it didn’t occur to me to tell him not to wear it and I kind of liked how it connected us all). One response said 'I honestly hate when MIL holds little one as he doesn’t smell like himself when I get him back,' whilst another documented how she had pre-warned visitors not to wear strong perfume; 'We had a text we sent to everyone that came to visit our baby for the first three months. Take off your shoes at the door, wash your hands, if you’re sick or been around someone that’s been sick don’t come by, no loud smelling perfume and don’t kiss the baby. A few people were pissed but the majority said ‘omg I can’t believe you had to send this message, people are insane doing any of these things!!’
If scent-shirking is a new etiquette that I have clearly been oblivious to, what I’d really like to know is are we actually doing any harm by wearing it? 'Whilst smell is important in the bonding process between mother and baby it’s not the only mechanism and indeed, babies born without a sense of smell will still form strong attachments with their mothers,' says Frasnelli. 'There hasn’t been a study to test whether wearing fragrance would interfere with this process as it wouldn’t be ethical so I’m hypothesising here, but if the mother is changing her body odour by using a lot of chemical substances including perfume it may be distracting to the newborn as it will be a foreign smell. The baby will still develop a strong bond regardless, but because their noses are more sensitive than ours I would personally not recommend using a perfume or at least use it sparingly.'
Speaking of babies being more sensitive, I personally never used anything but water to wash both my boys for the first couple of months having presumed that anything fragranced probably wasn’t the best thing to use on their skin but is it actually harmful to them and if so does that extend to other people’s perfumes transferring onto them?
'For infants under one years old, complete avoidance of fragrances is strongly recommended,' says PharmD, Toxicologist, and Cosmetics Safety Assessor Mohammed Kanadil (aka @moskinlab). 'Newborns are highly vulnerable and sensitive to xenobiotic exposure. Their detoxification systems, including liver enzymes, are not yet fully developed, making them less equipped to process and eliminate compounds compared to adults. Additionally, newborns have a relatively large surface area of skin in proportion to their body weight. This amplifies their risk of exposure if a fragranced product is applied or comes into contact with their skin.' Kanadil goes on to say that whilst fragrances can contain compounds derived from natural essential oils, some of these components may still exhibit endocrine-active properties (though not necessarily endocrine-disrupting). 'While such properties pose no significant risk to a healthy adult with balanced hormones and a functioning detoxification system, they can present a high-risk scenario for newborns, whose hormonal and metabolic systems are still developing.'
The upshot? Until we can bottle that ‘eau de baby’ smell, my take is that it’s probably best to go easy on the fragrances as a new mother and bear in mind that other mums may not appreciate wafts of the latest beauty hall blockbuster around their new arrivals.
Image credit: Getty images
Cassie Steer is acting head of beauty at Grazia with over 25 years’ experience on women’s glossies.