Preemies and Pain :: Newborn Infants Medicine Papers

Preemies and Pain "Ouch!!" Ordinarily, that word elicits a predictable response. However, is that response one that is unilaterally perceived? The topic of pain endurance is one that is often discussed. It is understood that the feeling of discomfort is something abhorrent to all people, and is intrinsic at birth. While most people assume that the level of torment is comparable in all people, scientists have recently begun exploring the possibility that pain tolerance may be greatly dissimilar among individuals. Recently, in class, we have wondered how anyone could be sure that pain is felt to the same degree in all people. It is a fact that all humans feel pain due to the presence of pain receptors. When confronted with a stimulus, the nerves send signals to the brain, which interprets the signals as discomfort. We know that others feel pain because we are able to communicate with one another. If something hurts a person, that individual is able to say, "Ouch, that hurts." While the majority of humans are able to express their discomfort, there is one group that does not have that luxury. Because babies are unable to speak, and subsequently communicate their feelings, we automatically assume they feel no pain. Because of this situation, there has long been a debate concerning babies and their threshold of pain. People recognize that babies signal their pain in a variety of ways, including crying and contorted facial gestures. Although scientists might deem these reactions as mere reflexes because they have no definitive measure of the infant's pain threshold, most doctors believe that a newborn feels pain. This tenet is due to the existence of a completed nervous system. If people are at the mercy of their systems, and this is why they feel pain, it would make sense that an infant, with a complete nervous system, would feel the same way. Nevertheless, until ten years ago, it was not acknowledged that premature, or even, unborn children feel pain because people believed that their nervous systems were too immature to function properly (2). Because of this, it was acceptable practice in the past for doctors to operate on premature babies without anesthesia because they thought that, even if the babies felt pain, they would not suffer any long-term damage (1).