Researchers pinpoint pain responses i...( TORONTO - Dr. Anna Taddio a researcher...),Health

TORONTO - Dr. Anna Taddio, a researcher at The Hospital for Sick Children (HSC), has found that newborns who experience repeated painful procedures in the first days of life experience more intense pain and learn to anticipate it. This research is reported in the August 21 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

"This was the first study to look at anticipatory pain responses in newborns. This research confirmed anecdotal reports that infants become hypersensitive to pain and learn to anticipate pain as a result of cumulative exposures to pain," said Dr. Taddio, the study's principal investigator, an HSC pharmacist and associate scientist, and an assistant professor of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto.

"Many newborn infants undergo painful, invasive procedures after delivery for medical reasons and it is important for us to understand how they react to pain, and look at ways to decrease their pain, " added Dr. Taddio.

In the study, infants who received repeated painful procedures (heel lances) over the first 24-36 hours of life were compared with a control group of infants. The heel lances were necessary to monitor the infants' blood sugar levels as they were born to mothers with diabetes and were exposed to higher levels of glucose in utero relative to infants of non-diabetic mothers. In order to counteract the high levels of glucose, the infants produce more insulin. After birth, their blood glucose levels may fall rapidly below normal values due to relative overproduction of insulin. Following standard clinical guidelines, blood was taken from the infants' heels every two to four hours after birth to monitor glucose concentrations until the infants were able to readjust their insulin production (an average of 10 heel lances per infant).

All infants in the study were healthy and on the postnatal ward with their mothers. The infants in the control group were matched to those of diabetic mothers on birth charact
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Contact: Laura Greer
laura.greer@sickkids.ca
416-813-5046
University of Toronto
20-Aug-2002

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