The effects of breast feeding on pain of injection in newborns

Pain control in newborns is one of the important tasks, which produced many controversies in pediatric medicine. Nowadays, it is proposed the usage of non-pharmacologic pain control methods. This study has been done to investigate the effect of breast feeding on pain control in newborns. Methods & Materials: A clinical trial was designed to evaluate analgesic effect of breast-feeding during injection of hepatitis B vaccine. 130 newborns had been referred for hepatitis B vaccination, were selected from Mirza Kochak Khan Hospital, Tehran, Iran. After describing the procedure was described the testimonial was took from parents. They were divided randomly in tow groups. In cases group, feeding was begun two minutes before injection and continued for 45 seconds. In the control group injection was made without breast feeding. Pain assessment was performed with Douler Aigue Nouveaune (DAN) scale. In the case group 35.4% of newborns got 4 points and no one got more than 7 points according to DAN scale. In contrast the control group 32.4% got 8 points or more and no one got less than 3 points. The mean of pain severity in case group was 3.5 and in control group was 6.7 and it show significant difference according to Mann-Whitney U test (p<0.0001). This study shows that breast-feeding can significantly reduce pain in newborns. Therefore, we suggest this simple method generally for all painful procedure to prevent the development of possible permanent psychological effects in newborns.