Pain Expression in Preterm Neonates and its Relation to Developmental Care and Serum Cortisol

Abstract

reterm neonates who are admitted in the NICU are frequently exposed to stressful and painful procedures which induce physiological and behavioral neonatal changes (Carbajal et al., 2008). Stressful and painful procedures include needle pricking, noise, light, cold, infection and mechanical ventilation (McNair et al., 2013). Some measures called developmental care such as skin to skin contact (kangaroo care), non nutritive suckling, facilitated tucking, reducing light and noise exposure in NICU were found to improve physiological and behavioral pain expression in preterm neonates (Coughlin et al., 2009).