Questions About Pain Control For Newborns

Experts Generally Agree Babies Can Feel Pain, But Disagree On How To Treat It

(CBS)  Josie Toland has undergone a lifetime's worth of medical procedures. She was born two months premature and developed serious lung problems. She's had tubes inserted to breathe and to eat, and constant sticks in her heels to draw blood.

"Babies have an average of 10 to 15 painful procedures per day in this unit,” said Dr. Whit Hall of Arkansas Children's Hospital.

Josie also received medications to control her pain, but according to the new research, very few babies receive that kind of treatment, CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports.

The study was conducted at French hospitals and monitored premature babies in their first 14 days of life. Each baby had an average of 75 painful procedures, like heel pricks and inserting breathing tubes; and almost 80 percent of the time, no medications were given to manage the pain.

"Everyone is so busy saving lives that they may tend to forget about the pain and the stress that the procedures in the newborn ICU are causing to the baby,” said Dr. K.J.S. Anand of Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

Anand is a leading researcher on pain and newborns. He says though there is general agreement in the medical community that babies feel pain; there is less of a consensus on how to handle it.

"The clinicians at the bedside may not be able to judge how intense is this child's pain," Anand said.

"So is this baby requiring any pain medication?" Gupta asked.

But the side effects of failing to treat a baby’s pain could be behavior problems later on.

Today's report recommends trying to limit the number of procedures done on infants.

Doctors need to be as sensitive to a baby's pain as they are to an adult's, especially because the tiniest patients can't speak for themselves.

[masorteam]

Oops, publish button seems to be acting out on this version of firefox...I guess repeating x 3 could be attributed to adult learning in any case.

[masorteam]

Gone are the days of eyedroppers of brandy for use in baby pain. Rightly so! But sugar? Could this be the beginning of Obesity Woes? Maybe this is the time to start the life long access to Pulsed Magnetic Field Therapy which has proven results for many conditions, one of the most important being, pain reduction and relief. Just imagine how this could help physicians in their quest "to do no harm."

[masorteam]

Gone are the days of eyedroppers of brandy for use in baby pain. Rightly so! But sugar? Could this be the beginning of Obesity Woes? Maybe this is the time to start the life long access to Pulsed Magnetic Field Therapy which has proven results for many conditions, one of the most important being, pain reduction and relief. Just imagine how this could help physicians in their quest "to do no harm."

[masorteam]

Gone are the days of eyedroppers of brandy for use in baby pain. Rightly so! But sugar? Could this be the beginning of Obesity Woes? Maybe this is the time to start the life long access to Pulsed Magnetic Field Therapy which has proven results for many conditions, one of the most important being, pain reduction and relief. Just imagine how this could help physicians in their quest "to do no harm."

[shippg-2009]

Maybe people will realize that baby''s don''t get the ability to feel pain AT BIRTH. It exists before birth, as well.

Think about it.

Pseudo-doctors should give pain killers to pre-born babies as they are killing them in abortions.

[bobinky1]

This is going to be a BIG step in ending RIC!!!! Yippee!!! I have been praying that this country will finally ban it completely!

Except for Jews and Muslims who practice circumcision for religious purposes, circumcision was started here in the US to prevent masturbation. The arguments that it helps prevent UTI%u2019s was added later to help %u201Cprove%u201D that it was a good thing. Since girls get UTIs more frequently then boys maybe we should have girls circumcised as well? I don%u2019t believe that but that logic is just about as sound as having boys circumcised.

Circumcision removes some of the most sensitive skin from a man, causing him to not obtain complete sexual fulfillment. That is kind of sad when you think about it. That parents are depriving their boys of complete sexual fulfillment!