0
The Pediatric Forum |

Newborn Babies: More Pain Than That

Stephen L. Black, PhD
[+] Author Affiliations

Copyright 2004 American Medical Association. All Rights Reserved. Applicable FARS/DFARS Restrictions Apply to Government Use.

More Author Information
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2004;158(6):600-600. doi:10.1001/archpedi.158.6.600-a
Text Size: A A A
Published online

I found the article of Simons et al1 provocative in documenting the extent to which neonates in an intensive care unit are subjected to painful, invasive procedures without appropriate pain control. It is disturbing to learn that this cruel practice still persists in the face of the substantial evidence that has been published in recent years demonstrating that babies do indeed feel pain. Unfortunately, the impact of this study may be lessened by an inadvertent error in summarizing the results. In the "Comment" section, the authors state "neonates experience up to 14 painful procedures per day."1 (p1062) That is shocking but, as they report elsewhere in their article, the situation is actually far worse. The figure of 14 painful procedures per neonate per day is the average; it was instead found that they underwent up to 53 such procedures per day.

Corresponding author: Stephen L. Black, PhD, Department of Psychology, Bishop's University, Lennoxville, Quebec J1M 1A9, Canada (e-mail: sblack@ubishops.ca).

REFERENCES

Simons  SHP, van  Dijk M, Anand  KS, Roofthooft  D, van Lingen  RA, Tibboel  D. Do we still hurt newborn babies? a prospective study of procedural pain and analgesia in neonates. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2003;1571058- 1064
PubMed

First Page Preview

First page PDF preview

Figures

Tables

Interactive Graphics

Video

Country-Specific Mortality and Growth Failure in Infancy and Yound Children and Association With Material Stature

Use interactive graphics and maps to view and sort country-specific infant and early dhildhood mortality and growth failure data and their association with maternal

Simons  SHP, van  Dijk M, Anand  KS, Roofthooft  D, van Lingen  RA, Tibboel  D. Do we still hurt newborn babies? a prospective study of procedural pain and analgesia in neonates. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2003;1571058- 1064
PubMed

Correspondence

CME Course for:


You need to register in order to view this quiz.


To understand the clinical management of acute heart failure syndromes.
Accreditation Information The American Medical Association is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
The AMA designates this journal-based CME activity for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 CreditTM per course. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
Physicians who complete the CME course and score at least 80% correct on the quiz are eligible for AMA PRA Category 1 CreditTM.
Note: You must get at least of the answers correct to pass this quiz.
Note: You must get at least of the answers correct to pass this quiz.
You have not filled in all the answers to complete this quiz
The following questions were not answered:
Sorry, you have unsuccessfully completed this CME quiz with a score of
The following questions were not answered correctly:
For CME Course: A Proposed Model for Initial Assessment and Management of Acute Heart Failure Syndromes
Indicate what changes(s) you will implement in your practice, if any, based on this CME course.
To view and print your certificate and access a summary of your CME courses go to My CME.
NOTE:
Citing articles are presented as examples only. In non-demo SCM6 implementation, integration with CrossRef’s “Cited By” API will populate this tab (http://www.crossref.org/citedby.html).
Submit a Comment

Some tools below are only available to our subscribers or users with an online account.

Related Content

Customize your page view by dragging & repositioning the boxes below.