Pain And Babies: No Thanks For The Memories

Posting Date: 09/21/2000

Original broadcast date: July 28, 2000

Evidence is growing that babies do feel pain and they remember it, a finding that could result in them becoming hypersensitive to needles and other stimuli as adults.

If true, physicians have to take extra care in subjecting newborns and premature infants in intensive care units to painful tests and treatments without anesthesia.

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In the latest study at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, rats whose feet were made sore as infants ended up being very sensitive to pain as adults, according to a report in the Science Magazine.

Researchers say if pain can cause the rewiring of the nervous system in rats, a similar pattern may develop in humans because the pain pathways work in much the same way.

One procedure still sometimes done without anesthesia or pain relievers is circumcision, which doesn?t make sense to me because this can be very traumatic to infant boys. I?m opposed to circumcision as unnecessary, but if it is performed, there should be pain relief for the infant.

I?ve told you about one previous study that compared the responses to vaccinations by boys who were circumcised and those who were intact. It turns out those who were circumcised were more sensitive to the inoculations -- they screamed and yelled more -- than the boys who weren?t circumcised.

When it comes to circumcision, the main question to me isn?t whether it?s painful, but why it is done in the first place.

How early pain affects us as an adult is still controversial. We now know, however, that there should be careful treatment for pain in babies undergoing medical procedures, to avoid possible long-term effects.

Source: Science Magazine, July 28, 2000.