Developmental changes in the responses of preterm infants to a painful stressor
Section snippets
Participants
Participants included 49 healthy premature infants; 21 were of a younger GAB (YGAB), born between 28 and 31 weeks’ gestation (M = 29.81; SD = .98; 9 girls, 12 boys) and 28 were of an older GAB (OGAB), born between 32 and 34 weeks’ gestation (M = 33.11; SD = .69; 15 girls, 13 boys). Participants were recruited from two large metropolitan hospitals with NICUs: University of Minnesota Children's Hospital-Fairview University Medical Center and Hennepin County Medical Center, with 670 and 250 admissions per
Baseline levels
As expected, the baseline heart rate of the YGABt1 infants was significantly higher than the heart rate of the OGAB preterms [t(47) = 2.11, p = .04; see Table 1]. In addition, the baseline heart rate levels of the YGABt2 infants remained significantly higher than the heart rate levels of the OGAB infants [F(1,40) = 12.74, p = .001] and were not significantly different from their own baseline heart rate levels at time one [F(1,33) = 2.91, p = .10].
Responses to the heel stick blood draw
Controlling for baseline heart rate levels (as well as the
Discussion
The first goal of the present investigation was to longitudinally examine developmental differences in preterm infants’ ability to self-regulate in response to stressors to gain a better understanding of the vulnerability of preterm infants to stress exposure. The second goal was to integrate assessments of both physiology and behavior to examine whether behavioral responses reflect physiological responses, and whether the association between behavioral and physiological responses differs by
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a grant from the Minnesota Medical Foundation (643-7051) to the last author and a K05 award (MH66208) to the third author. The authors wish to give a very special thank you to the families who participated in this research and to the nurses, lab technicians, and physicians at the Fairview University Medical Center and Hennepin County Medical Center, Minneapolis, MN. Thanks also to the undergraduates at the University of Minnesota who assisted with data collection
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2016, Neurobiology of DiseaseCitation Excerpt :An unfortunate element of neonatal intensive care is repeated procedural pain and related stress. By 24 weeks gestation, nociceptive circuitry for pain perception exists, but is not yet fully functional, such that painful stimuli appear to produce a more generalized response in preterm infants (Lucas-Thompson et al., 2008). Despite ongoing concerns about the impact of pain on the preterm brain, until very recently there have been relatively few studies directly linking pain and abnormal preterm brain development (recently reviewed in Ranger and Grunau, 2014).
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