Katie Couric's Notebook: Baby Pain
Every year, some 400,000 newborns in this country end up in intensive care, many undergoing painful procedures intended to keep them alive.
Video: They face things like needle pricks, intubation and shots - and each procedure can be traumatic. But they don't necessarily have to be.
To learn more, just click on the monitor.
It is especially important that parents and medical professionals working with infants in intensive care units remember to minimize the effects on pain on infants as much as possible.
Though the brain and mind of infants may not yet be fully developed, those areas of the brain that register pain,joy,sadness,and other emotions and feelings are already operational. And just because infants cannot speak verbally and complain,it does not mean that infants aren''t sometimes experiencing great pain due to some of the ICU procedures which they must undergo to save their lives.
Some of these painful events may possibly be remembered emotionally as traumatic memories which could have subtle or even major effects on their early development in life as well.
The more that the experience of pain can be reduced for infants through the sensitivity and awareness of parents and medical professionals, the better.
Peter
Congratulations upon this great achievement and honor!
Peter