Is oral sucrose an effective method of pain relief for pre-term Literature review

Is oral sucrose an effective method of pain relief for pre-term neonates - Literature review Example Preterm neonates undergo several diagnostic procedures in the clinics and hospital, from vitamin K injection during the first hours after being delivered up to heel pricks for blood sampling to detect metabolic aberrations few days after being discharged. Some preterm neonates also undergo necessary resuscitation and ventilation to sustain and support life of premature vital organs. These situations warrant the administration of drugs and behavioral interventions like opioid analgesics, local and general anesthetics, sedative/ hypnotics, NSAIDS, and sucrose (Anand et al 2006, p. 11). While there are several researches performed to validate the efficiency of these agents in neonates, the issue on safety on the preterm neonates remains an active area of debate. In this review, research articles from journals in scholarly databases such as Cochrane databases and PubMed were evaluated and compared based on their relevant evidence on the practice of using oral sucrose in preterm neonates. Only the studies that utilized a randomized controlled trial designs were selected. The design and number of participants utilized in the studies will be considered and discussed in this paper. Moreover, the research articles are classified and covered under specific procedure often undergone by neonates. The Challenge of Pain Assessment New developments in the neurobiological, embryological, and developmental studies established that even the primitive forms of human life respond to noxious stimuli through a combination of distinct behaviors and physiological activity (Anand et al 2006, p. 9). Like adults, unnecessary pain and suffering of the fetus and the neonate need to be prevented to avoid short- term and long- term consequences (Haidon and Cunliffe 2010, p. 123). As with every situation, assessments always precede interventions even in the management of pain. In the actual clinic setting, the pain felt by the neonates are often overlooked as a normal pattern of their behavio r. For instance, neonates undergoing procedures in the clinics and hospitals like bladder catheterization, needle sticks, surgery, mechanical ventilation, and even the administration of intravenous antibiotics are expected to cry due to discomfort and pain. Because of the ubiquitous nature of pain in preterm neonates, clinicians may fail to address the suffering in minor procedures and fail to perform necessary actions (Porter, Wolf, and Miller 1999, p. 1). Failure to acknowledge the importance of alleviating pain in the preterm and term neonates can result to serious consequences in their neurologic maturation. Therefore, more sensitive assessment tools are needed to detect the level of pain in the neonates and to validate the intervention researches in pain relief. Currently, specific tools consider multidimensional features associated with pain like cry behavior, grimace, quality of sucking, and physiological outcomes (Vani, Nimbalkar, and Thakre 2009, p. 200). Neonates may show different spectra of crying depending on each situation (Belliene et al. 2004, p. 142). Unlike adults, pain assessment of preterm neonates rely on these signs rather that an actual description and quality of pain (Lawrence et al. 1993). Although several researches were conducted to minimize the unnecessary pain, the assessment of pain in preterm