A few weeks ago Lola told us about the possible methods that can be carried out to eliminate or appease the physical pain of babies before different sanitary techniques and I want to rescue this issue by something that happened to me today in a class about vaccines that have been given to me.
According to Prof There are two trends regarding pain in infants and children before vaccination. Some authors agree to avoid pain and others comment that vaccines are like that, that they hurt and that they have to live it or even that they should not hurt as much as is believed.
Possible techniques to avoid pain before a vaccine administration would be:
Topical anesthetic treatment
The eutetic mixture of anesthetic cream (EMLA) applied under an occlusive dressing achieves analgesia during the injection and for 24 hours later. It should be applied about an hour and a half before the administration of the vaccine by applying a little cream on the area and covering it with a dressing (gauze and tape) that will be removed before applying the injection (or before entering the consultation ). There are already prepared patches whose administration schedule is identical, that is, place the patch an hour and a half before and remove it when going to administer the vaccine.
In the case of live virus vaccines (triple viral, influenza, chickenpox) whose administration is subcutaneous, it is suspected that it may cause a decrease in the immunity of the vaccine, however, in the tests carried out in this regard no such suspicion has been demonstrated.
Treatment with oral analgesics
Administration of paracetamol or ibuprofen before vaccination also decreases the pain of vaccines. To be effective they must have spent about 6 hours and continue to administer it for 24 hours.
Non-pharmacological treatments
The local pressure on the area to be punctured for about 10 seconds before the puncture slightly decreases the pain. One tablespoon of sugar before administration can also reduce discomfort.
Puncturing children in the arms of their parents or even if they breastfeed while breastfeeding are good systems for the child to be more relaxed and feel less pain.
In older children they are effective breathing and distraction techniques like "blowing away pain", using festive blowers (aka "matasuegras" - why will they be called that?), making soap bubbles, reading books, singing a song or using music.
Once explained the measures to minimize the pain derived from the administration of vaccines I explain the dialogue with the Prof in the next post.
