Sugar Water, Pacifier Help Newborns Endure Pain
Originally published by Reuters Health, July 9, 2002
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) — Sugar water followed by a pacifier can ease the pain of a routine heel prick test for newborns, researchers report.
A sweet solution may help trigger release of the body's own pain relievers, called endogenous opioids, while sucking on a pacifier may allow the newborn to control at least one source of stimuli and help divert his or her attention from the pain.
"Sucking is a powerful source of perceptual information for infants, causing deployment of attentional resources and thus effectively muting pain," Dr. Ipek Akman and colleagues from Marmara University Hospital in Istanbul, Turkey explain.
Their study compared the effects of water, water sweetened by dextrose or sucrose, and sweetened water plus a pacifier in 138 healthy newborns who were pricked in the heel to draw blood. The infants given the sucrose solution followed by a pacifier cried less and felt less pain as judged by their facial expressions compared with the other infants.
Newborns that received sucrose water and a pacifier cried for an average of 17 seconds and infants who received dextrose and a pacifier cried for an average of 55 seconds. The average duration of crying for newborns was 93 seconds for those receiving only sucrose and 102 seconds for those who received only dextrose. Babies who received water cried for an average of 132 seconds, according to the report in the June issue of Pain.
While the pacifier in combination with the sucrose solution was the most effective at easing pain, sucrose is less readily available in hospital nurseries. The findings, therefore, indicate that a dextrose solution in combination with a pacifier "constitute simple and safe interventions that can be used to provide (pain relief) in newborn infants during minor procedures," Akman and colleagues conclude.
In the past few years, researchers have come to realize that newborns are capable of feeling pain. The long-held belief among doctors that young infants don't feel pain led to a reluctance to provide pain relief during routine procedures such as blood sampling, immunization and circumcision.
Recent guidelines for easing pain in newborns recommend the use of topical pain relievers such as lidocaine and acetaminophen for postoperative pain.
