Looking Out for Future Pain :: Pain Health Medical Essays

Looking Out for Future Pain Pain is a method used by the body to interpret the outside world. Our skin is covered with sensory neurons that are responsible for acquiring information about the body's surroundings (6). Some of the nerve endings involved in the pain sensing process are called nociceptors (6). Most of the sensory receptors and nociceptors come from an area near the spinal cord (6). The information from the sensory neurons is sent through intermediate neurons and is passed onto the motor neurons that are involved in a physical movement, or are sent to the brain (1). In the brain, the information is interpreted and behavioral and emotional reactions are created (6). The definition of pain used by the International association for the Study of pain describes it as a sensory or emotional interpretation that is produced when there is the potential or actual occurrence of tissue damage (2). Adults are able to verbalize the intensity of their pain and can help monitor the effectiveness of treatment when there is damage to the body tissue. How can adults interpret the pain in infants who cannot verbalize their experience? What concerns should we have when treating tissue damage in babies? What about the damage treatment of babies inside the womb? It has been noted that a newborn has sensory nerve cells that have a greater respond rate than an adult (4). With sensitive sensory nerve cells, the spinal response to a stimulus is also increased and lasts for a longer period of time when compared with an adult (4). The appearance of these sensitive nerve cells is found on a larger portion of a newborn's skin when compared with adults (4). These sensory areas are called receptive fields (4). The receptive fields help the nervous system keep track of where the stimulus was received (4). With a larger receptive field, babies are unable to pin point the exact location of the stimulus (4). Since newborns have very sensitive sensory nerves, the same response is produced to any stimulus without regard to the intensity (4). A newborn may react in the same way to a pinch as to a soft touch (4). The newborn will respond to non-harmful experiences as if they were potentially harmful (4). Questions have been raised about the level of sensation that the fetus itself undergoes when using surgery to address abnormalities in a fetus (1).