Pain assessment and intervention for term newborns

Abstract

A baseline assessment of pain should occur as part of a newborn's health assessment within the first few hours of life. Validation and assessment of pain in the term newborn is important for providing care because newborns may experience pain from a multitude of procedures, ranging from heel sticks to circumcisions. Current assessment tools evaluate both behavioral and physiologic parameters. In addition, providing individualized care requires a knowledge base of the interventions available to reduce or eliminate pain, such as breastfeeding, non-nutritive suck, skin-to-skin contact, and sucrose pacifiers. This article describes three newborn pain assessment tools, the use of valid assessment tools, and evidence-based interventions that are recommended to effectively manage newborn pain.