PEDIATRICS Vol. 88 No. 6 December 1991, pp. 1287-1288
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Sucrose as an Analgesic for Newborns

EDGAR J. SCHOEN MD1

1 Department of Pediatrics, Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, 280 W MacArthur Blvd, Oakland, California 94611-5693

To the Editor.—

Blass and Hoffmeyer1 are to be congratulated for documenting the simple noninvasive use of a sucrose-flavored pacifier to relieve pain in newborns. In well-controlled studies they showed that not only did this benign therapy decrease distress during blood collection for routine newborn screening, but it also reduced crying more than 50% during circumcision. Earlier work by Blass and others indicated that a pacifying stimulus as well as oral sucrose relieves pain2-4 and that this analgesic effect is mediated through opiate pathways.5-7