Epidural analgesia is an extremely effective and popular treatment for labor pain. In this review, we trace the history of the use of epidural analgesia and its refinements. We then outline the goals of treatment and methods used to attain those goals. The use of low concentrations of local anesthetics, combined with lipid-soluble opioids, does not impede the progress of labor or depress the ne...

Immersion in water during labor and delivery as an alternative to traditional delivery is a practice that has increased in many countries. This technique is effective in reducing pain and duration of labor. The American Academy of Pediatrics and The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have published a clinical report which indicates the potential maternal benefits during the fir...

Mode of birth (MOB), differentiated as either spontaneous vaginal, instrument vaginal, or cesarean (emergency or planned), has the potential to have lasting repercussions for the infant, as well as the mother – which then can also affect the newborn. A woman’s postpartum lack of mobility (as in the case of cesarean birth, or epidural usage) and/or pain can affect her ability to care for her inf...

BACKGROUND We aimed to examine current bedside analgesia/sedation (A/S) and pain assessment (PA) practices in Italian neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in relation to the findings of an epidemiological European study and recently-introduced national guidelines. METHODS We analyzed the Italian data from the EUROPAIN (EUROpean-Pain-Audit-In-Neonates) prospective observational study on A/S p...

• The scientific data are not sufficient to recommend neonatal circumcision of males. • The procedure is not essential to the child's well-being. • Parents should determine what is in the best interests of the child. • To make an informed choice, parents should be given accurate and unbiased information and be provided the opportunity to discuss this decision. • Existing scientific evidence dem...

Abdominal pain is a common clinical problem in children. The challenge is to determine which could be secondary to serious pathology. For the paediatric surgeon, the evaluation of a child with abdominal pain is often to ascertain if there is a surgically amenable pathology. The first clinical report of appendicitis in 1711 is credited to a German surgeon called Lorenz Heister (Ramsted et al., 1...

The aim was to describe current reports in the scientific literature on sleep in the intensive care environment and sleep deprivation associated with painful experiences in premature infant. A systematic search was conducted for studies on sleep, pain, premature birth and care of the newborn. Web of Knowledge, MEDLINE, LILACS, Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus, VHL and SciELO databases w...

OBJECTIVE This study sought to know the perception of the emotional state of women with pregnancy susceptible to prolongation. METHODOLOGY The research was conducted with qualitative descriptive methodology, founded on in-depth individual interviews of 7 gestants susceptible to prolongation, with ages between 21 and 32 years and duration of the pregnancy comprised between 40+5 and 41+4 weeks....

The purpose of this paper was to carry out a review of literature on the history and current stage of the knowledge of systemic analgesia in neonatology and the factors influencing its use. A search for scientific articles was made in the MEDLINE, SciELO and LILACS databases using the keywords: analgesia, systemic analgesics, pain, neonatology, newborn, intensive care units and neonatal intensi...