Mom better than dad at soothing baby's pain: study

母亲比父亲更能舒缓宝宝的痛苦：研究

Reuters Health - Preemies show less pain when mom holds them than when dad tries to comfort them, according to a new study of babies having blood drawn at the hospital.

路透社健康新闻——据对已经被医院提取了血液的婴儿的一项新研究表明，当父亲努力抚慰早产儿的时候，母亲的怀抱会使他们感到更舒适。

But the differences were small, said an outside researcher, and what's more important is that being held by either parent seemed to help babies get through the heel-stick procedures more easily.

但是，据外界研究员了解，两者之间的不同是很小的。并且，更重要的是不管是父亲还是母亲，他们似乎更能帮孩子通过跟帖程序。

Researchers investigated the effect of so-called "kangaroo care" on the babies' expressions of pain. In kangaroo care, an adult holds the infant, wearing only a diaper, against his or her bare chest, with a sheet or other cover wrapped around the pair.

研究员根据婴儿对痛苦的表达，对所谓的袋鼠式护理的效果进行了调查。袋鼠式护理即是成年人将仅垫着一块尿布的婴儿抱在他或她赤裸的胸前，用一条被单或其他的遮盖物将两人包裹起来。

"There's a big difference between when a baby gets (blood drawn) alone in an incubator and when the mom or dad holds the baby for this procedure," said Dr. Larry Gray, a pediatrician at Comer Children's Hospital at the University of Chicago who was not involved in the new study. "The first take-home is, boy, this really works."

芝加哥大学儿童医院的小儿科医师Dr. Larry Gray说过，“婴儿（已抽取了血液）独自呆在恒温箱里与父母在这个过程中将其抱在怀里相比有很大的不同”。他并没有参与这项新的研究，但是，他认为，“孩子，先带回家吧，这真的很有好处。”

Previous studies have shown that skin-to-skin contact has a number of positive health benefits for the baby, including relieving pain. And that could be especially important in preemies that need extra medical procedures and are more fragile than full-term babies, experts say.

专家说，之前的研究已经表明肌肤接触对孩子的健康有许多的益处，包括减轻疼痛，并且这对于需要额外医疗保护、比足月婴儿更脆弱的早产儿尤为重要。

"Here's a little 3-pound baby who says, 'I'd much rather have weighed 6 pounds or 7 pounds at birth, and now I have to keep myself warm, I have to beat my little heart,'" Gray said. With kangaroo care, "the parent provides the warmth, and the breathing regulation, and all of those hidden things," he told Reuters Health.

Gray说：“一个3磅大的婴儿说‘我非常想要自己出生的时候有6、7磅重，而现在我不得不一直保持自己暖活点并且控制一下我的小心脏’”。他告诉路透社健康新闻部，“有了袋鼠式护理，父母能给孩子提供温暖，让孩子有规律的呼吸，还能提供其它一些看不到的东西。”

For the new study, C. Celeste Johnston from the McGill University School of Nursing in Montreal looked at 62 preemies in the neonatal intensive care unit who needed multiple heel stick procedures for blood tests. For each of those procedures, the investigators had the baby's mom and dad alternate who held the baby using kangaroo care.

为了这项新的研究，来自蒙特利尔的麦吉尔大学护理系C. Celeste Johnston在新生儿特别护理区察看了62名早产儿，为了进行血液测验这些早产儿需要进行多次的跟帖程序。对于这些程序的每一步，调查员要求母亲和父亲用袋鼠式护理轮流抱孩子。

At the same time, they videotaped the faces of each of the babies during and after the blood draw. The faces were then analyzed for tell-tale expressions of pain, such as squeezed eyes and a furrowed nose and lip. Pain was rated on a 0-to-21 scale.

同时，他们将每个孩子抽血中和抽血后的面部表情录了下来。然后这些表情被用来分析他们痛苦的情况，比如挤眼睛，犟鼻子或者抿嘴唇。疼痛幅度大约在0到21分之间变化。

With dads providing kangaroo care, pain scores were 8.5 and 8.6 at 30 seconds and 1 minute after blood was drawn. When babies were held instead by their moms, the scores were 1.4 to 1.5 points lower at those intervals -- but no different after 1 minute. That compares to pain scores of about 11 to 13 in other studies of babies who got a heel stick while lying in an incubator.

当父亲提供袋鼠式护理的时候，抽血之后疼痛分值在30秒和1分钟时分别是8.5分和8.6分；当换做母亲的时候，这些分值在那些时刻分别降到了1.4分和1.5分—但是在1分钟之后并没有什么不同的。然而，在对躺在恒温箱中，也使用了跟帖程序的婴儿所做的研究表明，疼痛分值在11分到13分之间变化，这与袋鼠式护理所呈现的分值形成对比。

In general, moms reported having a bit more experience with kangaroo care than dads, although Johnston and colleagues said that didn't necessarily seem to explain the differences in babies' pain.

总体来说，尽管母亲强调在运用袋鼠式护理上比父亲更有经验，但是Johnston和他的同事说那似乎不能解释婴儿疼痛的不同。

"This supports the hypothesis that there is something unique about the comfort of a mother's contact over and above that of another caring adult," they wrote in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. "The difference in the male physique, especially the chest, may be perceived by the infant to be not that of a natural caregiver."

他们在《儿科与青少年医学档案》里写到，“这支持了一种假设，妈妈的爱抚与其他成人相比是一种独一无二的东西。因为男人体型上的不同，特别是胸部，婴儿也许会察觉到他们并不是天生的看护者。”

Still, according to Gray, the main message is that "mothers or dads are way better than just having (a painful procedure) done with no kangaroo care, no parent contact," though "mothers who have a little experience with it can do it a little bit better than dads."

然而，Gray仍然认为，关键信息是“在没有袋鼠式护理和父母接触的情况下，就进行一个痛苦的程序，父母还是更好的途径。”

He also noted that both moms and dads in the study said they felt positively about doing kangaroo care with their babies and would do it again. Although it's a scary thing to hold a tiny vulnerable baby, he said, the new findings show it does help.

他也注意到，研究中父母都说，他们感觉到进行袋鼠式护理效果很好并且他们会再次这么做。他说，尽管抱着这样一个脆弱的小孩是一件提心吊胆的事情，但是新的发现表明这么做确实很有用。

"Mothers and fathers should feel very comforted," he concluded.

他总结道：“母亲和父亲应该都会感觉到欣慰。”