Agenda Item Details
Day 2   Thursday Oct 12, 2017
9:45 - 10:45am
Presentation: Keynote Presentation - Neonatal Care
Presented By:

Marsha Campbell-Yeo, RN, NNP-BC, PhD, Halifax NS

Description

Partnering with Parents to Improve Newborn Pain Care – Evidence and Implementation

 

Involvement of parents in newborn pain management is of increased interest in both research and clinical settings. From an evolutionary view, the mother is the optimal source of physical and psychological support for the infant, both as a fetus and after birth. Hospital care and medical interventions are sources of separation and stress, leading to a diminished capacity for the infant to endure painful procedures. After decades of healthcare providers not recognizing newborn infants’ capacity to feel pain and the associated adverse outcomes, most surgical and end-of-life pain is now prevented and treated with pharmacological methods. However, the drugs used are often not effective for the most commonly performed painful procedures, and their repeated and frequent use may have potential short and long-term adverse effects. Recent research has thus focused on finding non-pharmacological interventions or sweet tasting solutions as a substitute to drugs, or as a means to decrease the drug-doses needed for optimal analgesia associated with procedural pain. Several of these interventions involve parents, e.g. skin-to-skin care, breastfeeding, or facilitated tucking. Despite this knowledge, clinicians often struggle with incorporating these strategies into everyday practice. Moreover, most parents and many providers remain unaware of the powerful benefits of integrating parents as active participants in newborn pain management.

 

Learning Objectives: 

  • Describe the immediate and long lasting consequences of untreated procedural pain experienced in early life.
  • Discuss the current most effective ways to diminish procedural pain in newborns.
  • Identify at least three strategies to engage parents more fully in newborn pain management.

 

 

 

Presenter's Background

Dr. Marsha Campbell-Yeo, a certified neonatal nurse practitioner, is an Associate Professor at the School of Nursing, Dalhousie University and a Clinician Scientist at the IWK Health Centre (cross appointment in the Department of Pediatrics, Psychology and Neuroscience) and a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) funded New Investigator. Her research lab, primarily funded by the CIHR and Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), aptly named “Mechanisms, Outcomes, and Mobilization of Maternally-Led Interventions for Newborn Care” (MOM-LINC), examines the effectiveness of maternal-led interventions to improve outcomes of at-risk infants related to stress, pain and neurodevelopment as well as improving uptake of pain relieving interventions by both parents and health care providers through innovative strategies and e-Health technology.

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