Oral sucrose solution as a pre-immunization analgesic

Abstract

Introduction: Painful procedures without adequate analgesia cause pain and suffering. The administration of oral sucrose is the most frequently studied behavioural and environmental intervention for the relief of procedural pain in newborn. Breast feeding is also an intervention studied frequently. Material and methods: The present study was a randomized controlled study conducted to assess and compare the analgesic effect of orally administered sucrose with that of breast feeding and controls during immunization in healthy infants using a validated behavioural acute pain rating scale. Approval was taken from institutional ethics committee prior to commencement of the study. 100 infants who met the inclusion criteria were included as study participants. They were randomly allocated into three groups, A (sucrose) and B (breast feeding) and C (control) [no intervention] of 33 to 34 infants each. Infants in group A (sucrose) receiving Inj Pentavac were given 2.0 ml of 24% oral sucrose 2 mins prior to vaccination and the infants behavior before and after the injection was observed and scored on FLACC Pain rating scale. Infants in group B (breast feeding) were breast fed 10 minutes prior to receiving vaccination and were also observed and scored on FLACC Pain rating scale.