Parental Comfort Helps Children Cope With Shots
July 25, 2000 (Atlanta) -- It's true that a little sugar can make the medicine go down, and so can parents' cooing, cuddling, and other efforts to soothe a child who is getting an immunization shot, a new study has found.
Researchers at the University of Michigan wanted to find out whether parents' behavioral interventions could ease children's fears and make the immunization experience more pleasant for everyone, including others in the waiting room.
"As in other studies, we found parental involvement before the procedure begins appears to be of importance in relaxing the child," researcher Barbara T. Felt, MD, tells WebMD. The study is unusual, she says, in that it also assessed parents' responses to their child's immunization. Felt is an assistant professor in the department of pediatrics and communicable diseases and an assistant research scientist at the Center for Human Growth and Development at the University of Michigan.
The study, which was published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, involved approximately 100 babies, 2 to 24 months old, and their parents who visited an urban pediatric office during the summers of 1997 and 1998. A little more than half of the parents were given suggestions for comforting their children, including using pacifiers, holding the children in their laps, and giving them verbal reassurances.
The immunizations were then videotaped to allow the researchers to observe the infants' and parents' behavior. Using a visual scale, parents were asked to rate their babies' comfort -- as well as their own -- at three points during the visit. Saliva samples were also collected from the infants and parents at different points in the process to check for concentrations of cortisol, a substance in the body that increases under stress.
While the parents who were given instructions on comforting the children did not indicate afterward that they felt any different than the other parents about the experience, their cortisol levels after the immunizations suggested they had less stress. "We suggest this might be due to a continued sense of active engagement in the visit for their child," Felt writes.
Parental Comfort Helps Children Cope With Shots
July 25, 2000 (Atlanta) -- It's true that a little sugar can make the medicine go down, and so can parents' cooing, cuddling, and other efforts to soothe a child who is getting an immunization shot, a new study has found.
Researchers at the University of Michigan wanted to find out whether parents' behavioral interventions could ease children's fears and make the immunization experience more pleasant for everyone, including others in the waiting room.
"As in other studies, we found parental involvement before the procedure begins appears to be of importance in relaxing the child," researcher Barbara T. Felt, MD, tells WebMD. The study is unusual, she says, in that it also assessed parents' responses to their child's immunization. Felt is an assistant professor in the department of pediatrics and communicable diseases and an assistant research scientist at the Center for Human Growth and Development at the University of Michigan.
The study, which was published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, involved approximately 100 babies, 2 to 24 months old, and their parents who visited an urban pediatric office during the summers of 1997 and 1998. A little more than half of the parents were given suggestions for comforting their children, including using pacifiers, holding the children in their laps, and giving them verbal reassurances.
The immunizations were then videotaped to allow the researchers to observe the infants' and parents' behavior. Using a visual scale, parents were asked to rate their babies' comfort -- as well as their own -- at three points during the visit. Saliva samples were also collected from the infants and parents at different points in the process to check for concentrations of cortisol, a substance in the body that increases under stress.
While the parents who were given instructions on comforting the children did not indicate afterward that they felt any different than the other parents about the experience, their cortisol levels after the immunizations suggested they had less stress. "We suggest this might be due to a continued sense of active engagement in the visit for their child," Felt writes.
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