Pain in infancy: conceptual and methodological issues.

The concept of pain in infancy was explored. It was suggested that our every day usage of the term pain be applied to infants. Essentially this suggestion is that we infer that an infant has a subjective experience that is unpleasant when there is evidence of tissue damage and the infant responds with signs of distress, such as crying, increased heart rate, facial expression consistent with distress or other signs.

Pain in infancy: neonatal reaction to a heel lance.

A combined single subject and group design was used to investigate changes in heart rate and crying in response to a heel lance, non-invasive tactile stimulation and baseline periods in 10 male and 10 female infants, each in their second full day of life. Heart rate was measured with an electrocardiogram. Percentage of time crying was computed from observations of audiotapes.