How parents can help children cope with procedures and pain.

S ometimes when a child is sick or hurt, it is necessary for physicians to do a procedure. The purpose of some procedures is to get more medical information; examples include doing a blood draw using a needle or collecting urine through a plastic tube called a catheter that goes into your child’s urethra. The purpose of other procedures is for a treatment, such as putting in stitches for a cut or giving a shot of medicine through a needle. It can be very difficult as a parent to see your child have pain from a procedure. Sometimes parents may feel frustrated that the procedure is causing pain and that the parent cannot make the pain go away. Parents can do several things to help a child with pain from a procedure.