NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -
Giving newborns a small dose of
a sucrose (sugar) solution seems to ease pain associated with
having blood taken (venipuncture) for the standard newborn
screening test but it does little to curb pain associated with
intramuscular injections or heel lances, results of a study
suggest.

Oral sucrose is widely used to manage pain associated with
certain standard procedures performed in healthy term newborns,
“even replacing established analgesics such as opioids and
local anesthetics,” the study team notes in a report in the
Canadian Medical Association Journal.

In their study, Dr. Anna Taddio at the University of
Toronto in Ontario and colleagues randomly assigned 120
newborns to sucrose and 120 to placebo given 2 minutes before
various painful procedures. Pain was assessed largely by
infant's facial expressions and behavior and changes in heart
rate and oxygen intake.

“Sucrose reduced overall pain in newborns when administered
before painful medical procedures during the first 2 days after
birth,” they report.

However, “unexpectedly,” they note, the sugar solution did
not seem to curb pain during either intramuscular injection of
vitamin K or during repeated heel-lancing for blood sugar
monitoring in newborns of diabetic mothers.

Based on their findings, the investigators say sucrose “may
be a relatively weak analgesic that is more effective at
calming infants during the recovery period after a painful
procedure than during the actual procedure when pain is at its
peak.”

SOURCE: CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal, July 1,
2008.