Infant vaccinations..do you give this?

[CoffeeRTC, BSN, RN]

Do you give sucrose before the shots? This would be in a peds office setting or hospital.

http://kdka.com/health/sugar.water.vaccines.2.1693198.html

[TiffyRN, BSN, PhD]

Sugar water is available in a commercial preparation for neonatal use. Most common brand out there is "Sweetease". It is common practice in neonatal units to give this to stable infants who are not NPO and are capable of tolerating at least a few drops of oral liquid. It is given for painful procedures or general comfort measures.

I routinely use it for heelsticks or immunizations. It's more a distraction than actual pain relief, but it's a very good distraction. I've observed some infants that with tight swaddling, pacifier and sweetease will not cry at all for a heelstick.

[NicuGal, MSN, RN]

Sucrose works on the pain receptors in the brain...there is a lot of research and data to back it up, it isn't only a "diversion". Several companies sell the heelsticker packaged with the sucrose.

Our peds clinics use this on all babies under the age of 6 months.

[CoffeeRTC, BSN, RN]

I was wondering more about the out of hospital use of this and what ages it would benifit.

My kids would cry for just a few seconds after shots. Nursing or a pacifier or just even picking them up and swaddeling them helped.

[melmarie23, MSN, RN]

On the unit where I just completed my exernship, we didnt give sweeties to infants for injections (Vit K or Hep B), but did if they were inconsolable after. We did gives these during circ's and sometimes for PKU heelsticks.

It was really dependent on the individual infant. They were available for use, but they were not always needed.

[linRdsNay]

Considering Sweetease are used as a distraction tool for neonates and doesn't offer any sort of analgesic, I'm not sure how beneficial it will be for an older population. I'd imagine even for a 12month old it's usage might not be beneficial...just my thoughts

[Spacklehead, MSN, NP]

Actually, if an infant breastfeeds - mom should be encouraged to do it during immunizations/heelsticks (if she feels comfortable doing so). It has been shown to have analgesic properties if the infant latches on (the key being latched on and fully nursing) just before, during and after the injection by way of the gate-control theory. It has been found to be just as effective (if not more) than sweet oral solutions.