Pain assessment and intervention for term newborns.
A baseline assessment of pain should occur as part of a newborn's health assessment within the first few hours of life. Validation and assessment of pain in the term newborn is important for providing care because newborns may experience pain from a multitude of procedures, ranging from heel sticks to circumcisions. Current assessment tools evaluate both behavioral and physiologic parameters. In addition, providing individualized care requires a knowledge base of the interventions available to reduce or eliminate pain, such as breastfeeding, non-nutritive suck, skin-to-skin contact, and sucrose pacifiers. This article describes three newborn pain assessment tools, the use of valid assessment tools, and evidence-based interventions that are recommended to effectively manage newborn pain.
Clifford
Patricia A
PA
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, NICU, PA 19104, USA. Clifford@email.chop.edu
Stringer
Marilyn
M
Christensen
Holly
H
Mountain
Deborah
D
D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D018730:Infant Behavior; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D024802:Nurse's Role; D009730:Nursing Assessment / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D010146:Pain / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000451:nursing*; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000379:methods / Q000451:nursing*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index