Kangaroo Care

Kangaroo care or Skin to Skin contact, positioning, and non-nutritive sucking are categorized as environmental interventions, and they have been known to have useful pain reduction properties, notably when used in combination with sweet solutions and breastfeeding. Kangaroo care is allowing direct physical contact with the parent. It is called Kangaroo care because it resembles the animal's approach to caring for their young. It is also known as skin to skin care. It is found to be effective in reducing pain as indicated by both stable physiologic parameters and lower scores in pain assessment tools (Johnston, Campbell-Yeo, Fernandez, Inglis Streiner & Zee 2014).

Careful positioning is also found to be effective in reducing pain. Examples are

It is important for the nurse to consider the fact that neonates do feel pain. This is important as the misconception about neonate pain is still prevalent in the medical community. If the nurse considered the neonate as capable of experiencing pain, they could easily identify behavioral cues. The nurse should be adept in the use of standardized pain assessment scales specific to neonates in order to assist in her understanding of pain, and to confirm her observation during the assessment of pain. Some scales involve evaluation of crying time, but crying can mean a lot of things and not only pain. It can mean that the infant is just hungry or uncomfortable. In many cases, neonates are intubated and pharmacologically sedated and thereby are incapable of crying. The nurse should know how to evaluate the applicability of the pain assessment tool especially if one of the parameters is crying. Crying can be a useful tool in assessment of pain but it must be analyzed in the context of which it is happening with the

Clinical guidelines on neonatal pain management should be available to nurses and should be regularly updated. The guidelines should be revised according to the latest empirical evidence. The guidelines will ensure effectiveness in and consistent pain assessment and pain management. The hospital must have pain assessment tools in place and the corresponding procedure and guidelines to follow after conducting pain assessment, which may include documentation, interpreting scores, and frequency of pain