Objective To develop and evaluate an educational video for active family participation in the relief of acute pain in babies. Methods A methodological and experimental study produced at the University of São Paulo at Ribeirão Preto School of Nursing and at a university hospital in southeastern Brazil, conducted in three operational stages, from January to July 2017. Results The video lasts nine minutes and 31 seconds, and it was validated by 19 expert judges with a 90% agreement among them for content and appearance items. Regarding the evaluation, 16 family members and pregnant women did it and were favorable to its use as an educational technology for learning. Conclusions Both the experts and the target population positively evaluated the video, which can be used as a health education strategy to empower families to engage in the baby pain relief with more autonomy and proactivity.

Os prematuros são submetidos a diversas manipulações e procedimentos durante internação em unidades neonatais, com consequências deletérias para a saúde. O objetivo do presente estudo foi descrever a manipulação a que são submetidos os prematuros durante as 24 horas em uma unidade de terapia intensiva neonatal (UTIN). Estudo observacional, descritivo, exploratório, realizado com 20 prematuros, filmados continuamente por um período de 24 horas, de setembro de 2008 a março de 2009 numa UTIN. Os prematuros foram submetidos a uma média de 768 manipulações e 1.341 procedimentos. A manipulação durou em média 2 horas e 26 minutos em um período de 24 horas. Cada manipulação agrupou uma média de 2,2 procedimentos, a maioria no turno matutino As manipulações isoladas representaram 65,6% do total de manipulações e a maioria teve duração inferior a um minuto. Conclui-se que nas 24 horas avaliadas, os prematuros foram submetidos a um excesso de manipulações na UTIN.

Objective: to dimension the exposure of premature infants to painful procedures, relating the distribution of the exposure to contextual factors, as well as to describe the pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions health professionals use during the first two weeks of the infant’s hospitalization at two neonatal services. Method: descriptive-exploratory study in which the professionals registered the painful procedures and pain relief interventions on a specific form in the patient file. Results: the daily average of the 89 premature infants was 5.37 painful procedures, corresponding to 6.56 during the first week of hospitalization and 4.18 during the second week (p<0.0001). The most frequent procedures were nasal/oral (35.85%) and tracheal aspirations (17.17%). The children under invasive ventilation were the most exposed to painful procedures (71.2%). Only 44.9% of the painful procedures received some intervention for the purpose of pain relief, the most frequent being sucrose (78.21%) and continuing sedation (19.82%). Conclusion: acute pain was undertreated at these neonatal services, recommending greater sensitization of the team for the effective use of the existing protocol and implementation of other knowledge transfer strategies to improve neonatal pain management.

Breastfeeding may be useful for relieving procedural pain experienced by neonates. Researchers have compared breastfeeding against other pain relieving approaches in several studies, presenting marked methodologic heterogeneity. Objective: To investigate the effectiveness of breastfeeding in reducing pain in newborns undergoing blood collection for newborn screening. Method: The sample of this randomized clinical trial study consisted of 60 full-term newborns: 31 in the experimental group and 29 in the control group. The experimental group was breastfed 5 minutes before, during, and for 5 minutes after the blood collection procedure. Neonates in the control group were held in mothers' arms but not fed or given a soother. The duration of breastfeeding was prolonged in comparison to previous studies. Results: The primary outcomes were Neonatal Facial Actions (Neonatal Facial Activity Coding System-upper face), sleep-wake state. Heart rate was considered as an index of arousal. Sucking frequency was only evaluated in the experimental group. Compared with the control group, the experimental group had significantly lower, Neonatal Facial Activity Coding System and sleep-wake state scores and heart rates changes. In the experimental group sucking frequency was highest during the first 5 minutes of breastfeeding before the procedure. Discussion: This study innovates from earlier studies in 4 respects: the different phases of the procedure were evaluated separately; the breastfeeding intervention covered the period from 5 minutes before the blood collection until the end of recovery; sleep-wake state was fully assessed (not merely crying) and the sucking frequency in the experimental group was assessed during the procedure. The conclusion was that breastfeeding was effective in reducing pain caused by blood collection for newborn screening.

Objective To appraise critically and to synthesize existing Maternal Kangaroo Care (MKC) intervention studies for neonatal procedural pain. Methods Four electronic databases were systematically searched and eligible studies selected by two independent reviewers. Of 93 abstracts, 12 studies met the inclusion criteria. Findings were extracted and methodology assessed based on best-synthesis methodology. Results There is evidence that MKC can significantly reduce pain from a single pain procedure in full-term infants and stable preterm infants (>26 weeks GA). All 12 MKC studies reported significant reduction in pain behavior but measures of heart rate varied. However, current approaches to data analysis cannot tell us of the magnitude of treatment effects. Conclusions Future studies need to clearly define their intervention, provide a guiding framework, explain their study methods and analyses and report effect sizes. This will help strengthen validity of the intervention and support recommendations for clinical application.