LEADING ARTICLE

Oral sucrose analgesia

Oral sucrose analgesia for preterm infant venepuncture

A B Acharya¹, S Annamali¹, N A Taub², D Field³

¹ Department of Neonatal Medicine, Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester, UK
² Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Leicester
³ Department of Child Health, University of Leicester

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr Acharya
Warwick Hospital, Lakin Road, Warwick CV34 6FA, UK; ashokachar@hotmail.com

---

Clear benefit of sucrose analgesia for preterm neonates during venepuncture is shown

---

Keywords: sucrose; analgesia; venepuncture; preterm

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Although studies of oral sucrose solution for procedure related pain in neonates have been subjected to a meta-analysis and a systematic review, several problems have been noted, and only one small trial focused on the role of oral sucrose for preterm venepuncture.^1–3

We therefore performed a randomised, double blinded, placebo controlled, crossover trial of 25% sucrose solution in healthy preterm infants to assess its efficacy in reducing pain responses during routine venepuncture.

All well infants, below gestational age 37 weeks, admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit at Leicester Royal Infirmary, who needed routine blood sampling on at least two occasions were eligible for the study.

Exclusion criteria included unwell infants, need for oxygen or ventilation in the last seven days, intravenous feeding, five minute Apgar scores of 6 or less, neuromuscular dysfunction, grade 2 or more intraventricular haemorrhage, dysmorphic features, maternal opiate abuse, and need for . . . [Full text of this article]

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

• McCullough, S, Halton, T, Mowbray, D, Macfarlane, P I (2008). Lingual sucrose reduces the pain response to nasogastric tube insertion: a randomised clinical trial. Arch. Dis. Child. Fetal Neonatal Ed. 93: F100-F103 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Cameron, D. (2007). How has research changed my practice in the last 5 years?. Arch. Dis. Child. 92: 1020-1023 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• American Academy of Pediatrics, , Committee on Fetus and Newborn and Section on Surg, , Canadian Paediatric Society, , Fetus and Newborn Committee, (2006). Prevention and Management of Pain in the Neonate: An Update. Pediatrics 118: 2231-2241 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Ogawa, S, Ogihara, T, Fujiwara, E, Ito, K, Nakano, M, Nakayama, S, Hachiya, T, Fujimoto, N, Abe, H, Ban, S, Ikeda, E, Tamai, H (2005). Venepuncture is preferable to heel lance for blood sampling in term neonates. Arch. Dis. Child. Fetal Neonatal Ed. 90: F432-F436 [Abstract] [Full Text]  

eLetters:

Read all eLetters

Pain Prevention in Neonates

Girish Gupta, et al.

Fetal Neonatal Ed. Online, 2 Mar 2004 [Full text]