For years, doctors have believed that newborns’ brains are not developed enough to feel pain and that their physical reactions are mere reflexes. Added to that is that it is very difficult to infer pain through observations. According to one on the management of neonates in intensive care, around 11 painful procedures would be performed and 60% of babies do not receive any type of anesthesia.
But, according to new research carried out by the well-known University of Oxford, newborn babies would feel pain just like adults.
The researchers used magnetic resonance images to compare the brain activity of 10 healthy babies who were between 1 and 6 days old, with the images of 10 adults aged 23-36 years, when they were pricked with a special bar of retraction that gave the sensation of being lightly pricked by a pencil on the soles of the feet.
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When comparing the images, it was found that 18 of the 20 brain regions that are activated when adults experience pain were activated in the babies’ brains. The images also showed that the babies’ brains had a “prick” response 4 times stronger than adults, meaning that babies not only experienced pain the same as adults, but also that their pain threshold It is very inferior.
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Babies had a response to the “prick” that was 4 times stronger than adults
The results of this research have very important implications because it offers us strong evidence that newborn babies feel pain and, in addition, highlights the need to design guidelines for administering pain medications.
Dr. Rebecca Slater, lead author of the study, explained: “We have to think that if we want to relieve the pain of undergoing a procedure for an older child, then we should give relief to the pain of a baby undergoing a similar procedure.”
The researchers know that this work opens a new path in neonatal pain research, and they are hopeful that in the future specific neurological signs of pain can be found in the brain that will allow the development of effective pain treatments for these little babies. who are the most vulnerable.
The complete paper was published in the journal eLife and is free access. You can download the .
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