Are there long-term consequences of pain in newborn or very young infants?
Physiologic studies indicate that very early pain or stress experiences have more than immediate consequences for infants. Assessment and care of pain are complex subjects made even more complex and challenging when the individual experiencing pain is a very young infant. This review provides evidence that significant and long-lasting physiological consequences may follow painful insults in the very young, including changes in the central nervous system and changes in responsiveness of the neuroendocrine and immune systems to stress at maturity.
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Gayle Giboney
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G ayle G iboney P age is an associate professor and the Independence Foundation Chair in Nursing Education in the School of Nursing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.