TY - JOUR T1 - Effect of suckling on the peripheral sensitivity of full-term newborn infants JF - Archives of Disease in Childhood - Fetal and Neonatal Edition JO - Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed SP - F130 LP - F131 DO - 10.1136/adc.2006.097931 VL - 92 IS - 2 AU - H M Abdulkader AU - Y Freer AU - S M Fleetwood-Walker AU - N McIntosh Y1 - 2007/03/01 UR - http://fn.bmj.com/content/92/2/F130.abstract N2 - Background: Sucking may reduce the manifestations of pain in newborn infants. Objective: To examine the effect of suckling on the threshold for peripheral somatosensory responses. Subjects and methods: Graded Von Frey filaments were applied to the heel to initiate peripheral somatosensory responses (withdrawal reflex and gross body movements) in term infants. Results: Dummy sucking increases the somatosensory threshold, but breast feeding had a more marked effect, increasing the threshold of the flexion withdrawal reflex (p⩽0.002) and the threshold for gross body movements (p⩽0.002). Conclusion: Peripheral sensitivity of newborn infants is considerably reduced during sucking, particularly at the breast. ER -