eLetters

191 e-Letters

published between 2020 and 2023

  • Sedation during Therapeutic Hypothermia in Asphyxiated Newborns

    Sir,
    In their paper Montaldo et al. suggest that routine use of morphine in infants with perinatal asphyxia and therapeutic hypothermia (TH) is not useful and potentially harmful (Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed. 2020:108-09). They rightfully suggest that morphine may accumulate during TH. However, in a recent study using multicentre data we have proposed novel dosing schedules for morphine and midazolam during TH thereby avoiding the risk of drug accumulation1.
    Montaldo et al. state that “… it is unclear if morphine suppresses the nociceptive cortical activity in babies…” referring to a study of oral morphine for acute procedural pain in preterm infants.
    Only since the late 1980s opioids are used during neonatal surgery following two classical papers by Anand showing that pre-emptive opioid analgesia following cardiac surgery in human infants dramatically decreased mortality and morbidity rates by suppressing pain and stress2 3.
    As written by Montaldo et al. the right of universal pain relief is undisputed, also in human infants, and it is generally accepted through many animal experiments that TH is stressful. Furthermore, sedation and analgesia during TH after cardiac arrest in adults is well tolerated and effective4.
    Therefore we are very reluctant to remove the mandatory use of sedatives including morphine from our international Dutch and Flemish guideline of TH, and we would like to stimulate others to use analgesia, while avoiding the...

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