A developmental approach: looking at the specificity of reactions to trauma in infants

Until quite recently the notion that infants (0-3 years) experience physical pain was ignored. Medications against pain were hardly used, and the younger the child was, the less the awareness of the infant’s psychological experience of pain. Anand et al. (1987) showed the severe physiological effects of pain in medically compromised babies: pain-activated stress hormones leading to dangerous hyperglycemia. Gauvain-Piquard and Meignier (1993) reported young children’s reactions to pain and medical pediatric teams’ lack of attention to it. Als et al. (1994) demonstrated the positive physiological and behavioral impact of combining painful procedures regularly done on very small preterm infants into “packages”.