ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 explores the possibility for infants to experience adult interpretive sensibilities of pain, anxiety, and other experiences of distress, and the meanings that may inhere in languages pertaining to newborns. This chapter questions established medical practices of assessing infants, and in particular the widespread use of pain and agitation scales. This concern is particularly relevant to physicians, nursing practitioners, and other healthcare professionals as they engage in medical dialogue with respect to infant experience, and how decisions are made with respect to the use of analgesic-sedative medications and other care measures. Methodologically, this chapter is an example of engaging primarily with narrative, psychological, and observational research to explore the lived meaning of a phenomenon.
