Maternal voice reduces procedural pain in neonates: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Procedural pain management is a very important part in the clinical care of neonates. We aimed to conduct a meta-analysis to evaluate the effects of maternal voice on neonatal procedural pain, to provide insights to the clinical pain care of neonates.

Two researchers independently searched PubMed, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library, CINAHL, Web of Science, China Biomedical Literature Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang and Weipu Database for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving the effects of maternal voice on the procedural pain of neonates up to October 25, 2022. Two investigators screened the literature based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria and evaluated the methodological quality of the inclusion study. RevMan 5.3 software was used for the meta-analysis.

A total of 8 RCTs with a total of 584 neonates were included. Our meta-analysis indicated that maternal voice reduces the pain score (SMD = -0.60, 95% CI: -0.81 to -0.39) and heart rate (SMD = -0.81, 95% CI: -1.44 to -0.18) and increases the comfort level (SMD = -0.47, 95% CI: -0.83 to -0.11) and blood oxygen saturation (SMD = 0.70, 95% CI: 0.03-1.38) during procedure (all P < .05). Moreover, maternal voice reduces the pain score (SMD = -0.58, 95% CI: -0.88 to -0.28) and heart rate (SMD = -0.44, 95% CI: -0.75 to -0.12) and increases the blood oxygen saturation (SMD = 0.41, 95% CI: 0.00 to -0.82) after procedure (all P < .05). No publication biases were detected by the funnel plots and Egger tests (all P > .05).

Maternal voice is beneficial to reduce procedural pain and improve the physiological indicators in neonates. It is still necessary to conduct high-quality, large sample studies in the future to further elucidate the effect of maternal voice on neonatal pain care.