The smell of breast milk reduces how newborns perceive and react to acute pain

Wow. The smell of of breast milk can have a powerful calming effect on a newborn undergoing a painful procedure.

A common, quick but painful procedure soon after birth is heel-prick blood sampling. But could the smell of breast milk or formula milk affect the acute pain felt by the newborn?

This was the hypothesis tested in a new study from Turkey by Tasci B. and Ayyildiz T.K. (2020).

***

The study:

84 newborns were divided into two groups (42 infant formula vs 42 breast milk).

All infants were full term (born between 38–42 weeks gestation).

Each baby weighed between 2500–4000g.

The heel-pricks were all done 1 hour after a feed.

Two milliliters of either the formula milk or the breast milk were soaked into filter paper and held under the baby’s nose for three minutes.

• The pain felt by each baby with the heel-prick blood sampling was assessed using the Neonatal Infant Pain Scale (NIPS Scoring System).
• The infant heart rate and blood oxygen saturation was measured using a pulse oximeter.
• Saliva samples were taken before and after the…