Study: Breastfeeding During Vaccinations Reduces Infant Pain

A recent study showed that breastfeeding reduces pain and crying time during vaccinations in infants.

Researchers assessed 10 studies that included 1066 infants, most of whom were between 1 and 6 months old. The studies examine the effects of breastfeeding, parental holding, placebo, no intervention, skin-to-skin contact, formula milk and bottle feeding, sweeting tasting solutions, distractions, and other methods to determine which method was the most effective at reducing pain and crying time.
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Studies included in the analysis were randomized controlled and quasi-randomized controlled located via the Cochrane Register of Controlled Trials, Medline, Embase, PsychINFO, and CINAHL, the metaRegister of Controlled Trials, ClinicalTrials.gov, and the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform. Behavioral and physiological indicators and composite pain scores were used to measure the effectiveness of interventions in reducing pain during vaccination.

Overall, breastfeeding reduced pain behavioral responses—both crying time and pain scores—during vaccination compared to other interventions, but did not reduce physiological indicators, such as heart rate.

Specifically, breastfeeding resulted in a 38 second reduction in cry time and was associated with a 1.7-point reduction in pain scores. The evidence for cry time and pain scores was ranked as moderate quality, and data primarily focused on infants younger than 6 months.

Researchers noted that additional research is needed to determine if breastfeeding is an appropriate method for pain reduction in older infants, and that “no studies included in this review involved populations of hospitalized infants undergoing other skin-breaking procedures. Although it may be possible to extrapolate the review results to this population, further studies of efficacy, feasibility, and acceptability in this population are warranted,” the researchers concluded.

—Melissa Weiss

Reference:

Harrison D, Reszel J, Bueno M, et al. Breastfeeding for procedural pain in infants beyond the neonatal period [published online October 28, 2016]. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD011248.pub2.