Newswise — Australian researchers writing in The Journal of Pain reported there is significant improvement in pain management for hospitalized infants undergoing painful procedures, such as heel lances to draw blood.
Numerous studies have shown that procedural pain is poorly managed in hospitalized infants, and this can lead to immediate and long-term adverse physiological and behavioral consequences of untreated pain. As a result, several professional societies have recommended reducing the number of painful procedures routinely administered, giving oral sucrose before and during minor painful procedures, and using preemptive opioid analgesia before endotracheal intubation.
For the study, researchers reviewed more than 3600 minor procedures performed on 55 infants. Of those, 7 in 10 were heel lances. Previous research had shown no or infrequent use of analgesics for minor procedures. The objective of the study was to ascertain analgesic use during minor painful procedures in a cohort of infants admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit for an expected stay of more than 28 days.
The researchers found there was significant improvement in the use of pain management in the minor procedures, compared to previous studies in Canada and the United Kingdom. Either oral sucrose or opioid analgesics were administered in 85 percent of all minor procedures in the Australian study. The authors also noted that despite the increase in use of specific analgesia during painful procedures in infants, some 15 percent of the infants they studied still did not receive pain management. This shows that many sick newborns are still exposed to painful procedures without analgesia.
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