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Sucrose: Infant Pain Reliever

Sucrose (and sometimes honey) is increasingly being used to reduce pain in newborns, for minor things such as injections (Guala, et al., 2001; Okan, et al., 2007; Anand, et al., 2005; Schoen and Fischell, 1991). -Ray Peat, PhD

Clin Ther. 2005 Jun;27(6):844-76.
Analgesia and local anesthesia during invasive procedures in the neonate.
Anand KJ, Johnston CC, Oberlander TF, Taddio A, Lehr VT, Walco GA.
BACKGROUND:
Preterm and full-term neonates admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit or elsewhere in the hospital are routinely subjected to invasive procedures that can cause acute pain. Despite published data on the complex behavioral, physiologic, and biochemical responses of these neonates and the detrimental short- and long-term clinical outcomes of exposure to repetitive pain, clinical use of pain-control measures in neonates undergoing invasive procedures remains sporadic and suboptimal. As part of the Newborn Drug Development Initiative, the US Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development invited a group of international experts to form the Neonatal Pain Control Group to review the therapeutic options for pain management associated with the most commonly performed invasive procedures in neonates and to identify research priorities in this area.
OBJECTIVE:
The goal of this article was to review and synthesize the published clinical evidence for the management of pain caused by invasive procedures in preterm and full-term neonates.
METHODS:
Clinical studies examining various therapies for procedural pain in neonates were identified by searches of MEDLINE (1980-2004), the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register (The Cochrane Library, Issue 1, 2004), the reference lists of review articles, and personal files. The search terms included specific drug names, infant-newborn, infant-preterm, and pain, using the explode function for each key word. The English-language literature was reviewed, and case reports and small case series were discarded.
RESULTS:
The most commonly performed invasive procedures in neonates included heel lancing, venipuncture, IV or arterial cannulation, chest tube placement, tracheal intubation or suctioning, lumbar puncture, circumcision, and SC or IM injection. Various drug classes were examined critically, including opioid analgesics, sedative/hypnotic drugs, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and acetaminophen, injectable and topical local anesthetics, and sucrose. Research considerations related to each drug category were identified, potential obstacles to the systematic study of these drugs were discussed, and current gaps in knowledge were enumerated to define future research needs. Discussions relating to the optimal design for and ethical constraints on the study of neonatal pain will be published separately. Well-designed clinical trials investigating currently available and new therapies for acute pain in neonates will provide the scientific framework for effective pain management in neonates undergoing invasive procedures.

Eur J Pediatr. 2007 Oct;166(10):1017-24. Epub 2007 Jan 4.
Analgesia in preterm newborns: the comparative effects of sucrose and glucose.
Okan F, Coban A, Ince Z, Yapici Z, Can G.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of different oral carbohydrate solutions for alleviation of pain in healthy preterm babies. Thirty-one preterm infants who were having blood drawn by heel prick were given 2 ml of solution A (20% sucrose), solution B (20% glucose) or solution C (placebo, sterile water) into the mouth, 2 min before lancing. Behavioural responses to this painful stimulus were measured by duration of crying and facial expressions (Neonatal Facial Coding System, NFCS) and physiological responses were measured by heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR), and oxygen saturation changes (SaO(2)). Infants had a mean birth weight (+/-SD) of 1,401 g (406), gestational age of 30.5 weeks (2.7); at the time of the procedure the postmenstrual age was 32.3 weeks (1.5). There was no significant difference in the time spent squeezing the heel between the three groups (P = 0.669). After the heel prick of both the sucrose and glucose groups the duration of first cry and total crying time was significantly reduced (P = 0.005 and P = 0.007). When the babies received placebo they showed a significantly higher NFCS score at 4 and 5 min after the heel prick (P = 0.009 and 0.046 respectively). Following painful stimulus HR increased significantly in the first 3 min compared with baseline, and at the first minute the mean of the HR was found to be significantly higher in the placebo group than in the sucrose and glucose groups (P = 0.007). We concluded that both sucrose and glucose administered orally before a heel prick reduce the pain response in preterm infants.

Minerva Pediatr. 2001 Aug;53(4):271-4.
Glucose or sucrose as an analgesic for newborns: a randomised controlled blind trial.
Guala A, Pastore G, Liverani ME, Giroletti G, Gulino E, Meriggi AL, Licardi G, Garipoli V.
BACKGROUND:
To evaluate the effect of different oral glucose or sucrose solutions on the pain response to heelstick in newborns.
METHODS:
DESIGN:
randomised double blind placebo controlled trial of water (control) versus one of three solutions of glucose – namely 5, 33 and 50% – or one of two solutions of sucrose (33% and 50%) or nothing.
SETTING:
postnatal ward.
PATIENTS:
seven groups of 20 healthy newborns (gestational age 38-41, weighing over 2500 g) were randomised to receive 2 ml of one of the six solutions on the tongue inmediately before heelstick procedure. Main outcome measure: heart rate before, during and three minutes after the procedure.
RESULTS:
Even if the trend of the cardiac rates did not reach statistic significance, glucose solution 33 and 50% proved to be the most effective in reducing pain response.
CONCLUSIONS:
Sweet solutions may be an easy, useful, safe and cheap analgesic for minor invasive procedures in newborns.

CLIN PEDIATR July 1991 vol. 30 no. 7 429-432
Pain in Neonatal Circumcision
Edgar J. Schoen, MD, Anne A. Fischell, MD
Because newborn circumcision is a quick and safe surgical procedure, any method to relieve pain must be almost risk-free in order to be acceptable. General anesthesia and narcotic analgesia are not appropriate. Dorsal penile nerve block (DPNB) with lidocaine hydrochloride is probably the most effective and safest form of anesthesia for newborn circumcision currently available, but it can cause significant local and systemic reactions. Only a limited number of cases of DPNB have been reported and we feel that this procedure should be used cautiously until there is more published evidence of its safety. Alternative methods of pain relief including oral acetaminophen and topical anesthesia should also be studied. Of special interest is recent evidence that a sucrose-flavored pacifier is an effective analgesic during newborn circumcision.

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