Optimizing comfort in neonates during jaundice screening procedures

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Created On: 01/04/2026

Neonates undergoing jaundice screening experience pain and physiological stress due to routine blood sampling, underscoring the importance of safe, non-drug-based pain management strategies.

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Key take away

Combining maternal cuddling with breastfeeding effectively lowers pain and distress in full-term newborns during blood sampling.

Background

Neonates undergoing jaundice screening experience pain and physiological stress due to routine blood sampling, underscoring the importance of safe, non-drug-based pain management strategies.
A randomized trial assessed whether maternal cuddling combined with breastfeeding could effectively reduce procedural pain and physiological stress in full-term neonates undergoing jaundice screening.

Method

In total, 60 neonates were assigned to either maternal cuddling with breastfeeding (the intervention) or routine care (the control). All mothers received standardized breastfeeding education. Pain was assessed using the neonatal infant pain scale (NIPS), and secondary outcomes included crying duration, heart rate, and oxygen saturation. Multivariable linear regression was used to adjust for baseline differences between the groups.

Result

The results showed that adjusted analyses significantly improved pain and physiological outcomes in the intervention group compared to routine care (Table 1).

Conclusion

Integrating maternal cuddling with breastfeeding effectively minimized pain and stress responses in full-term neonates. This simple and cost-effective intervention can be easily implemented in both hospital and community healthcare settings.