Pediatric Pain from Hypodermic Needles: History, Causes and Increasing the Efficacy of Pain Mitigation

Abstract

Venous access is one of the most innovative and effective medical technologies developed. It provides the ability to deliver medications that are distributed quickly throughout the body, while blood analysis is one of the primary diagnostic tools used by physicians. Hypodermic venipuncture is as vital as it is commonplace, but is a procedure of a particularly distressing nature for young patients. An inability to accurately track developing pediatric anatomy and the incomplete neurological development of younger patients results in a challenging environment for the clinicians and an often traumatic and painful one for the young patients. Although there have been methods suggested to mitigate these challenges, a safe and reliably effective solution has not been found or established as a patient standard of care. This review will cover the evolution and purpose of the procedure, considerations for pediatric physiological variations and current pain reduction methods. Finally, a high efficacy mitigation technique will be proposed, utilizing current neurological understanding based on primary literature sources.