Sugar, breastmilk can ease vaccination pain

Children too experience painMost parents can hardly bear the sight of their children cry, say from vaccination. However, simple things like sugar solution and breastmilk can help these children to cope better with the pain from vaccination, reports Sade Oguntola.

No parent will want to see his new baby cry, especially if the cause is a preventable one. Many health experts like Mrs. Joke Adeyemi, a nurse in a private hospital, Ibadan, will tell you that you will hardly see the parents smile. Some will even ask if there are other alternatives to giving the drug or getting samples for the test that is being done because of the agony of watching their babies in pain.

Fortunately, paediatric health experts are looking at new ways to help infants cope with the pain of taking injections or having a blood sample taken for a test in the laboratory when they are sick.

While most mothers are used to giving a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down, researchers have also theorized thats a little sugar solution ahead of a child taking an injection could help the child cope better with the pain associated with the injection.

A recent study found that giving a weak sugar water solution a few minutes before the injection is administered helped reduce infants’ post-shot pain by nearly 80 per cent.They based its effectiveness on the fact that sugar helps to release feel-good chemicals in the body.

In the study, Dr. Linda Hatfield, at the Pennsylvania State University School of Nursing in University Park, and her associates gave the sugar solution to 38 infants and plain water to 45 infants before they were to get a series of injections. The team reported in the medical journal, Paediatrics, that,“Administration of two millilitres of a 24 per cent oral sucrose solution two minutes before routine immunisations is effective in decreasing maximum immunisation pain and shortens the time before returning to a near normal state in infants at two and four months of age.”

Dr. Hatfield and her associates however cautioned that though the sugar solution did not eliminate pain at any point in time, other pain reduction or comforting measures (acetaminophen, distraction, holding, feeding, etc) used in conjunction with sucrose administration could provide additional comfort for infants.

Hatfield assured that the sugar solution is so weak (only one-quarter sugar) that it is unlikely to have any effect later on weight problems or even raise blood sugar in the short-term. Since it has to be given two minutes before the injection, she said it is best given in a clinic setting.

Meanwhile, Dr. Kenneth R. Goldschneider, director of the division of pain management at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre in Ohio believed that it is one of the many interventions that can be used to ensure safer pain relief in children, unlike others that are not too safe.

Dr. Babatunde Osinaike of the Department of Anaesthesia, University College Hospital(UCH), Ibadan, said given that pain is also real in children and considering that they may also need to have immunisation, undergo tests and other procedures as part of caring for them, paediatrians have been trying to find ways of ensuring that what ever is done be as pain-free as possible.

According to him, there are several drugs that children can take before having such tests or immunisation to ensure that they do not feel the pain, but most doctors are afraid of giving them because of the fear of adverse drug effects and lack of knowledge on the type of drug or its dosage.

Dr. Osinaike said a number of strategies to ensure less discomfort and pain, say in the course of given injections and tests that involve taking blood samples, have been considered for use in children. This includes the use of honey, sugar solution, pacifiers, the mothers’ cuddling the baby, and even breast-feeding.

Unlike sugar solution that many may not be able to use appropriately, he said breast milk because it also contains some glucose could be given when the injection is being given. According to him, it is natural, risk-free, and easy for mothers to provide.

According to him, studies done to assess the effect of breast milk on pain associated with such things as vaccination have demonstrated that breastfeeding offers significant pain relief in newborn babies during painful procedures like giving of injection.

“The eye-to-eye contact gives comfort to the baby. So is the cuddling. At the same time, the act of sucking distracts the baby’s attention from the pain as well as switch on some neurotransmitters to produce natural pain relievers in the system of the baby. This is similar to what happens when you give sugar solution. What the sugar solution does is to cause the release of the natural pain reliever (naturally occurring opiates) into the body of the baby to help lessen the discomfort and pain during the painful procedure.

Dr. Osinaike said from all indications, breastfeeding should be the first pain relief choice during any painful procedures that new children may have to undergo. He said that the fact that breast milk, with about seven per cent of glucose, provides adequate pain relief during painful procedures similar to what is obtained with 20 per cent concentration of glucose or sucrose, suggested that there is more to breast-feeding than just the glucose in the milk.

According to him, “the interaction is more complicated in terms of pain relief than simply the body producing its own pain relievers when breast milk is given.Meanwhile, Dr. Robert Bortolussi of IWK Health Centre, and a professor of paediatrics at Dalhousie University in Halifax was also of the opinion that anything that is going to create an environment where there is less discomfort and pain in children will no doubt be accepted by all parents.