Can pregnant women use menthol?

You may be unfamiliar with menthol. Some people even mistake it for a type of food. Menthol is actually an organic compound. The state is granular or crystalline. It is the main component of peppermint and peppermint essential oils. Menthol is commonly used in toothpaste and perfume. It is a great flavor enhancer. It is also often used in pharmaceutical preparations. For example, the common cooling oil contains menthol. It has the effect of refreshing the brain.

Can pregnant women use menthol?

1. Pregnant women should use less mint

We generally recommend that pregnant women use less mint, but mint actually does not cause side effects such as miscarriage. But why are pregnant women recommended to use less mint? First of all, the main ingredients in mint are some volatile oils, and mint generally exerts its medicinal effects through volatile oils. These volatile oils have the effect of refreshing the mind and clearing the head, which means that mint has the effect of stimulating the nerves. However, pregnant women are very sensitive, and any stimulation to the nerves will be reflected in the fetus' body. In other words, mint will irritate the fetus, so it is not recommended for pregnant women to eat mint frequently.

In addition, mint is also a traditional Chinese medicine. Although it is non-toxic, pregnant women should not use medicines casually, so pregnant women should use mint.

2. You should even hear less

It was mentioned above that pregnant women should use mint as little as possible. Most people may just think that pregnant women cannot eat mint, but pregnant women should actually have less contact with mint, that is, smell less mint. Why? As mentioned above, the main components of mint are some volatile oils, such as menthol. Volatile oils, as the name suggests, are very volatile, so we usually smell a very strong mint smell. That is to say, even if we just smell the mint, the volatile oil will have an effect on us, which is exactly the same as the effect of eating mint. Therefore, pregnant women are advised to smell less mint.

3. Toothpaste is not a problem

We said at the beginning that mint is really everywhere in life, so many times we can choose not to eat mint, but we can't avoid it. For example, toothpaste, which we use every day, often has a mint flavor. So how can pregnant women avoid it? In fact, it’s okay to use mint-flavored toothpaste, because most mint toothpastes do not contain mint extract, but added mint flavor, and these flavors are artificially synthesized and are completely different from mint, except for the taste. Therefore, there is no problem for pregnant women to use mint toothpaste.