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Breast-Feeding Analgesia in Infants: An Update on the Current State of Evidence

Britney Benoit1, Ruth Martin-Misener, Margot Latimer

  • 1School of Nursing (Ms Benoit and Drs Martin-Misener, Latimer, and Campbell-Yeo) and Departments of Psychology & Neuroscience (Dr Campbell-Yeo) and Pain, Anesthesia and Perioperative Medicine, Faculty of Medicine (Dr Latimer), Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; and Centre for Pediatric Pain Research (Ms Benoit and Drs Latimer and Campbell-Yeo), Maternal Newborn Program (Ms Benoit), and Department of Pediatrics (Dr Campbell-Yeo), IWK Health Centre, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

The Journal of Perinatal & Neonatal Nursing
|April 25, 2017
PubMed

Insights

Direct breast-feeding effectively reduces procedural pain in full-term infants, outperforming other methods. However, expressed breast milk alone is not consistently effective for pain management in either full-term or preterm infants.

Area of Science:

  • Neonatal care
  • Pain management
  • Lactation science

Background:

  • Procedural pain is a significant concern in neonates.
  • Non-pharmacological interventions are sought to manage infant pain.
  • Breast milk offers potential benefits, but evidence requires synthesis.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To synthesize evidence on breast-feeding and expressed breast milk for procedural pain reduction in infants.
  • To compare the efficacy of direct breast-feeding versus expressed breast milk.
  • To evaluate effectiveness in both full-term and preterm infants.

Main Methods:

  • Systematic literature search of PubMed, CINAHL, and EMBASE.
  • Inclusion of 21 studies (15 on full-term, 6 on preterm infants).
  • Assessment of interventions including direct breast-feeding, expressed breast milk, and controls.

Main Results:

  • Direct breast-feeding was superior to maternal holding, topical anesthetics, and music therapy in full-term infants.
  • Direct breast-feeding was as or more effective than sweet solutions for full-term infants.
  • Expressed breast milk showed inconsistent pain reduction in both full-term and preterm infants.
  • Studies often had moderate to high risk of bias.

Conclusions:

  • Sufficient evidence supports direct breast-feeding for procedural pain management in full-term infants.
  • Expressed breast milk alone is not currently recommended as an adequate intervention for procedural pain.
  • Further high-quality research may be needed, particularly for preterm infants.

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