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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Parents may want to consider being present when their infant is treated in an intensive care unit (ICU). A recent study shows newborns treated in ICUs often endure painful procedures without pain medication, but parental presence increases use of medication before procedures.
Researchers looked at procedures performed on newborns in a Paris ICU from September 2005 to January 2006. They found during the study period, newborns experienced 60,969 first-attempt procedures, of which 69.6 percent were painful. Of the 11,546 supplemental procedures, 89.8 percent were painful. Each newborn underwent a median of 115 procedures during the period. Of these, an average of 75 were painful -- and only 20 percent of the painful procedures were performed with pain medication.
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Further analysis found prematurity, parental presence during procedures, neonates undergoing surgery and day of hospitalization were associated with greater use of specific pre-procedural analgesia, or pain medication.
Neonates are more sensitive to pain than older infants, children and adults, and this hypersensitivity is exacerbated in preterm neonates, study authors write. The knowledge that some vulnerable neonates underwent 153 tracheal aspirations or 95 heel sticks in a two-week period should elicit a thoughtful and relevant analysis on the necessity and the risk-benefit ratio of our clinical practices.
SOURCE: Journal of the American Medical Association, 2008;300:60-70
If this story or any other Ivanhoe story has impacted your life or prompted you or someone you know to seek or change treatments, please let us know by contacting Lindsay Braun at lbraun@ivanhoe.com.
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
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