Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Preemies and Pain

Here's an article for all you medically-minded folk. It's over my head, and I'm a halfway intelligent person with an honorary MD (I gave it to myself, so there), so here's the gist of it: preemies who experience a lot of invasive procedures (i.e. needle sticks, intubation, injections, IV placement, etc.) experience a lot of pain (duh), which both desensitizes them to pain AND to pain medications. This would explain why Becca didn't even cry when she got her H1N1 shot last week. Not a bit. The whole not feeling pain thing is nice, in a way, but remember that pain is actually your body warning you to take action - as in, when you stick your hand in the boiling water, you feel pain so that you will remove your hand before tissue damage sets in. Anyhow, I found it interesting - the parts that I could understand, at least!

Hmmm...I don't seem to be able to get the text to paste. Here's the link, at least: click me!

3 comments:

  1. interesting article, and even my nursing brain couldn't figure all of that stuff out, so don't feel bad. newborns definitely feel pain but most nicus and nurseries use something called "sweetease" to help alleviate their pain during painful procedures. (i think that 14-21 painful procedures a day is a little high, but i guess it could happen.) sweetease is concentrated sucrose and they say giving it to the neonate acts like an analgesic... do you know if they gave her that before procedures?

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  2. Just goes to show that Becca is even tougher than previously thought. Could that even be possible?

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  3. I like the "honorary MD"! I feel like I should have an honorary MD too (after all, I have endured 4yrs of medical school, 3.5yrs of residency, and will now be going though 3yrs of fellowship!) Becca is one brave little girl! My husband said that shot HURT at LOT and complained for the rest of the day!

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