Crying commonly occurs in response to heel stick and adversely affects the infant's physiologic stability. Minimal crying in response to pain is desired. "Kangaroo Care," skin contact between mother and infant, reduces pain and may reduce crying in response to pain. The purpose of this pilot study was to test Kangaroo Care's effect on the preterm infant's audible and inaudible crying response t...

Neonatal pain response and adverse effects and maternal anxiety were assessed in 27 infants who were randomly allocated to venepuncture or heel stick. Pain was assessed by nurses using the Neonatal Infant Pain Scale (NIPS) and a three point scale for the mothers. NIPS scores were higher in the heel stick group compared with the venepuncture group. Maternal anxiety was higher before the procedur...

background : due to the higher risk of  pain in preterm infants, pain management is important for such infants. the present study aimed to determine the effectiveness of kangaroo care on the severity of pain and physiological parameters after heel-stick in preterm infants. materials and methods: this was a prospective and randomized controlled cross-over study. twenty preterm infants allocated ...

AIM To evaluate whether spontaneous skin conductance activity is an objective method for measuring the stress response to painful stimuli in premature infants. The number and amplitude of the waves and the baseline increase with the activity of the sympathetic nervous system. METHODS In 20 preterm infants of gestational age >/= 29 weeks, behavioural state and spontaneous skin conductance acti...

BACKGROUND Heel stick is the most common painful procedure for preterm infants in neonatal intensive care units. Resultant pain causes adverse physiological effects in major organ systems. Kangaroo Care (KC), involving mother-infant skin-to-skin contact is a promising analgesic for infant pain; however, the effect of KC on the autonomic nervous system's response to pain is unknown. AIM To det...

OBJECTIVE In this study, we determined the assay performance criteria necessary to produce acceptable results for >or=98% of neonate bilirubin samples collected by capillary heel-stick. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS We determined serum free hemoglobin levels in 151 heel-stick serum samples to determine the hemolysis level. We then tested the effect of hemolysis on total bilirubin levels determined...

Background: Neonates are more sensitive to pain and likely to suffer from its long-term complications. Therefore, various methods including non-nutritive sucking, sensory stimulations, and various supportive interventions are employed to relieve pain in newborns. Aim: This study aimed to compare the effects of Yakson therapeutic touch and heel warming on pain caused by heel stick procedure, vit...

The objective of this study was to determine the consequences for HPA axis functioning among healthy full-term newborns of prenatal treatment with the synthetic glucocorticoid (GC), betamethasone, which is the routine treatment for threatened preterm delivery. Ninety full-term infants were recruited into two study groups (30 betamethasone treated; 60 comparison group matched for GA at birth and...