A study to assess the effectiveness of swaddling on pain among neonates undergoing heel lancing procedure in neonatal intensive care units

Neonates, infants and children often require examinations and investigations for admissions in the hospital. Even after admission frequent examinations and procedures will be carried out for further management. Pain during such investigations, treatments and procedures are called as procedural pain.¹Appropriate pain relief can be achieved through administration of analgesics. But analgesics can cause different side effects and reaction to the newborns.² Swaddling is the procedure of wrapping a baby in a blanket for warmth and security.³ swaddling provides stimulation across the proprioceptive, thermal, and tactile sensory systems that may reduce pain through gate control mechanisms.⁴

To assess the pain among neonates undergoing heel lancing procedure in control group and experimental group

To assess the effectiveness of swaddling among neonates undergoing heel lancing procedure in experimental group.

Quasi experiment post test only control group design was conducted to assess the effectiveness of swaddling on pain during heel lancing procedure. Total 60 Samples were selected by Non-probability purposive sampling method. Neonatal infant facial coding system (NFCS) is used to assess the pain. The conceptual framework based on the widenbach's prescriptive theory, with three factors which is Central purpose, the prescription and the realities.

during heel lancing procedure 10% experienced moderate pain and 90% experienced severe pain in control group and in experimental group 93.3% experienced moderate pain and 6.6% experienced severe pain. The mean pain score of control group is 7.2 and experiment group is 3.7 and p value is o.ooo1 which is less than 0.05 shows the difference in pain score in experimental group. Hence it is found that swaddling is effective in reducing pain during heel lancing procedure.