The analgesic effect of non-nutritive sucking on neonates during invasive procedures

Background & objective: Neonates admitted and treated in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) often receive painful invasive procedures. In such situations, the treating physicians often find themselves in a fix regarding the use of analgesics to relieve their actual or potential pain. It has been observed that the sucking often distracts the neonates from their mild to moderate pain. We conducted this study to analyze the effectiveness of non-nutritive sucking as an analgesic for neonates who were to receive invasive procedures. Methodology: This experimental study implemented a post-test-only control group design, involving 64 neonates in the NICU, selected using a simple random sampling technique, who were then divided into two groups, with 32 neonates each in a treatment group and a control group. The treatment group was given non-nutritive sucking, while the control group was given standard intervention, then the pain response was measured in both groups. Next, the pain levels of the two groups were compared using the Mann-Whitney U test. Results: The measurement results showed that there was a difference in the mean scores of pain response between treatment and control group, respectively 1.53125 and 5.8125. The P-value of the difference test was 0.000000004252, so that it could be interpreted that there was a significant difference in pain levels between the two groups. Conclusion: On the basis of the results of our study, it is concluded that non-nutritive sucking is an effective method for reducing the pain response in neonates during invasive procedures.