People are sharing eerie stories of smelling pregnancy and death before anyone knows

One Redditor is claiming that they can detect people who are pregnant or near death by smell alone, and it may actually be true. In the Reddit post, they said that both humans and animals give off a terrible smell soon before they die, and their pregnant friends make them feel sick.

Can people smell when death (or life) is coming?

In a Reddit post from last week, u/scoundrelbird claimed that they can smell when people are either about to die or on their way to birthing new life. They’ve been living with this strange talent for some time and finally decided to ask if anyone could explain it. They said they can detect either from a few meters away, and both scents are bad.

“The first one fills me with dread and anxiety (obv), it’s AWFUL,” they wrote. “The second one, oddly enough, makes me nauseous to the point of gagging or having to walk away. For example, I’ve unintentionally ruined surprise pregnancy announcements from friends because I started feeling sick around them long before they shared the news.”

“Is there any rational explanation for this? Something biological, neurological, psychological… anything?”

It’s possible that this Redditor simply has a sharp sense of smell. Pregnant people go through hormonal changes that can impact how they smell. Additionally, those who are dying can produce scents related to decay and stress.

The smell of death and Parkinson’s

Multiple hospice nurses have reported that they can smell when their patients are close to death. One such nurse, Julie, pointed to the compounds putrescine and cadaverine in a 2024 video.

“These are the two gases that are responsible for the distinctive smell of death, they are produced with bacteria breakdown from amino acids ornithine and lysine,” she said.

According to the Association for Psychological Science, one study found that injecting subjects with the toxin lipopolysaccharide resulted in a specific smell associated with cytokines—proteins produced by the human immune response.

Additionally, in 2022, a woman from Scotland helped develop a new test for Parkinson’s after realizing that she could smell the condition. Joy Milne said she detected a change in how her husband smelled 12 years before his diagnosis. She went on to work with other researchers to figure out if she could smell more diseases.

A rare few individuals are true “super smellers,” meaning they possess the condition hyperosmia. Researchers are still trying to figure it out, but the superpower may be genetic or linked to increased gray matter around the central olfactory system of the brain, according to a 2018 study.

“They knew before I knew”

A few commenters came forward to claim that they, too, could detect one of these conditions by smell, or knew others who could. Multiple teachers of autistic students claimed that these kids knew about their pregnancy, sometimes before they did.

“I was 6 weeks pregnant, hadn’t told anyone at work and obviously wasn’t showing,” wrote u/0caloriecheesecake. “My student comes up to me and whispers, ‘I just know you are pregnant, I can smell you. You smell like my aunties and I can see it in your eyes.’ Say what now! Lol. She was so excited for me all year and never shared her thoughts until I told my class.”

“I taught Kindergarten Self Contained Autism and three of my students kept rubbing my stomach before I knew I was pregnant,” said u/bootyprincess666. “It started randomly and I just figured ‘aww they like me,’ but no they knew before I knew.”

Others claimed to be able to smell near death or even specific illnesses aside from Parkinson’s.

“I can smell cancer and death,” said u/CenterofChaos. “My grandmother died from cancer, and I never forgot the smell. I’ve smelled cancer on other people’s grandparents, a neighbor, my pet cat. I didn’t realize it wasn’t something that people couldn’t regularly smell until recently.”

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