Are Essential Oils Safe for Kids?

This story was originally published on July 23, 2019 in NYT Parenting.

When Eva Sheie walked into her daughter’s new day care classroom in Austin, Tex., in December, she instantly noticed the floral aroma emanating from an essential oil diffuser.

Ms. Sheie, who is sensitive to fragrance, didn’t like the smell, but she also didn’t complain: “I don’t want to be that parent, you know?”

But after a few weeks, she noticed that her toddler and several other students had developed nagging coughs that lingered well into January. And when the teacher switched to an oil blend that was supposed to “disinfect” the air, Ms. Sheie said she felt “headachy and like I was going to throw up for an hour or longer” after dropping off her daughter each morning. Finally, after a few days of feeling ill, Ms. Sheie convinced the day care to turn off the diffuser. “The relief was immediate,” she said. Her symptoms went away, and her daughter quit coughing.

Dr. Justin Smith, a pediatrician at Cook Children’s Health Care System in Fort Worth, Tex., said that in recent years, more and more parents have been inquiring about whether inhaling, consuming or rubbing essential oils onto the skin can treat a variety of their children’s ailments, including cough, congestion, fever and more.

But little, if any, evidence back up claims about the healing properties of essential oils, Dr. Smith said. And more worrisome evidence exists on the risks of using them.

Ms. Sheie can’t prove whether the diffused essential oils were responsible for her or her daughter’s symptoms, for instance, but the oils’ tiny particles are “really good at infiltrating the upper and lower airways, which can cause irritation, especially in people with underlying chronic medical conditions such as asthma or allergies,” said Dr. David Stukus, an associate professor of pediatrics at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.