What is the best care for babies while being tested?

Pain management strategies should be used during blood sampling for neonatal hypoglycaemia. [Conditional recommendation]

Effective pain management strategies include skin-to-skin contact, breastfeeding, and oral sucrose.

Skin-to-skin contact, breastfeeding, and oral sucrose each result in medium to large reductions in pain scores related to heel-prick testing with minimal or no apparent adverse effects. Expressed breastmilk may also result in a small reduction in pain scores but there are few studies and the evidence is very uncertain.

Whānau should be given the opportunity to be involved in the choice of and provision of pain management related to blood testing.

Nil.

Nil.

Ask whānau what their preferences are for painful procedures. Some whānau Māori may wish to use rongoā Māori (traditional Māori medicine that takes a holistic approach) e.g. waiata, karakia, oriori to support pēpi during a painful procedure.