Sugar Does Not Relieve Newborn Pain

















    What terrible technique is being displayed in that photograph! See above link for how to do it properly!

  2. Sugar. Seriously, sugar. *Sigh* I know this is nothing new, and when my husband and I educated ourselves over six years ago and didn't have our son circumcised, we read about pacifiers in sugar water back then. It's just so mind-bogglingly stupid. I wonder if it started as some sort of joke because who on earth could actually think it would work even for a second?

    1. Thank you, common sense would tell you that giving a child a lollipop won't relive their pain while someone is setting their arm, let alone removing their foreskin. Especially as the foreskin in a newborn is attached to the glans of the penis like your fingernail to your finger!

  3. thank you for this. Sunday Surfing it

  4. I was told in the NICU that sugar would help my premature son with the pain from the many procedures he had to endure. he was originally given morphine when he was on a respirator but the sedative effect was dangerous for more than very occasional use. I was sceptical, but HOPED that sugar would in fact help him as I knew that it was certainly not the most peaceful start in life for him. Despite this, I am glad to hear that this is being investigated even if it means my son suffered more than I had hoped was the case. Eventually, hopefully we will come up with some better strategies. I am thankful that he was blessed with the very loving care of older and very experienced nurses during that period. Their gentle loving touch and soothing voices was probably much more effective for him and I bless the love they showed him.

  5. it stops/ lessen their crying not the pain...this is a common practice in Special Care Units/ Nurseries in government hospitals

  6. I don't understand how anyone in their right mind ever thought that SUGAR could relieve pain. "Oh my arm just got chopped off, I think I'll eat some sugar." Yeah, makes perfect sense.

    1. Thank you...that was my first thought...sugar isn't my first choice when I just stabbed my hand with a knife.

  7. I find that I eat sugar when I get angry. Sugar does do SOMETHING to you. Is it enough to chop a body part off? Hell no! They put caffeine in pain relievers because it has some minimal effect, but that doesn't mean we can give our babies caffeine for surgery.

  8. DAH! Did they really need a study to figure that out???? Isn't a baby screaming in pain enough?

  9. It's like giving a full grown man a lollipop right before you kick him in the balls, "Don't worry, it won't hurt, just suck on this."

    ...only, much, much, much worse!

  10. My NICU has *never* used sugar as a pain management method for painful procedures. We practice non-nutritive sucking, facilitating tucking and skin-to-skin with family to reduce pain. It helps to keep the babies more organized so they recover more quickly. For babies with painful conditions, we give analgesia, usually morphine. There are new studies coming out about the dangers of giving premies Tylenol and Ibuprofen (although Ibuprofen is used to close PDAs if the PDA is causing problems). We work with doctors, lab techs and other RNs to provide developmentally supportive care towards the babies. We also teach the parents, so that they can provide comfort during painful procedures if they wish (which 99% of the time they do!).

    I'm still amazed at how much blood that stupid PKU test takes. Geeze. Especially in a premie whose total blood volume is only 60ml.

    Your article doesn't talk about the damage sugar causes to the developing brain of the neonate! Sugar causes a rewiring of the brain circuits, although I'm unsure if it was just tested in infants who experienced regular painful procedures, or if it was done in a lab.

    In either case, it was a good theory, until it wasn't. Neonatology is in it's infancy (no pun intended) and developing rapidly. In the 1970's, people didn't believe babies could EXPERIENCE pain and routinely did surgery on babies who were only paralyzed. They were not even given a sedative or any kind of pain killer. You can imagine that the mortality rate from such procedures was pretty frickin high!!!!

    What I'm saying is that you have to start somewhere. Things I'm doing now will probably be totally backwards in 5 years. Giving sugar caused a decrease in crying, the BIIP score and outward signs of pain. It's easy to see that one would think it worked. It wasn't until they started going deeper into the theory that they discovered it didn't work.

  11. Oh yeah, sugar outta stop any and all discomfort. Are you kidding me? Whoever believes that is a moron.



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