Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Clinical Trial
. 1999 Dec;83(3):611-623.
doi: 10.1016/S0304-3959(99)00166-9.

Suckling- and sucrose-induced analgesia in human newborns

Elliott M Blass  1 , Lisa B Watt
Affiliations
Free article
Clinical Trial

Suckling- and sucrose-induced analgesia in human newborns

Elliott M Blass et al. Pain. 1999 Dec.
Free article

Abstract

This experiment had three goals: 1. To identify the basis of sucking-induced analgesia in healthy, term, newborn humans undergoing the painful, routine, procedure of heel lance and blood collection. 2. To evaluate how taste-induced and sucking-induced analgesias combine to combat pain. 3. To determine whether facial grimacing was an accurate index of diminished pain, or whether it was linked to tissue trauma. We report that: 1. Sucking an unflavored pacifier was analgesic when and only when suck rate exceeded 30 sucks/min. 2. The combination of sucrose and nonnutritive sucking was remarkably analgesic; we saw no behavioral indication in nine of the ten infants that the heel lance had even occurred. 3. Grimacing was reduced to almost naught by procedures that essentially eliminated crying and markedly reduced heart rate during the blood harvesting procedure.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Abad F, Diaz NM, Domenech E, Robayna M, Rico J. Oral sweet solution reduces pain-related behaviour in preterm infants. Acta Paediatr 1996;85:854-858.
    1. Anand KJS, Hickey PR. Halothane-morphine compared with high-doses sufentanyl for anesthesia and postoperative analgesia in neonatal cardiac surgery. New Engl J Med 1992;326:1-9.
    1. Anand KJS, Sippell WG, Aynsley-Green A. Randomised trial of fentanyl anesthesia in preterm babies undergoing surgery: effects on the stress response. Lancet 1987;243-248.
    1. Blass EM. Mothers and their infants: peptide-mediated physiological, behavioral and affective changes during suckling. Regul Pep 1996;66:109-112.
    1. Blass EM. Infant formula quiets crying human newborns. J Dev Behav Pediatr 1997a;18:162-168.

Publication types

Substances

LinkOut - more resources