
As recently as 1999, we thought babies couldn't feel pain till they were 1yo - isomorph
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_babies
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nanis
I find the constant use of "we" in these types of headlines rather off-
putting. Who is this "we" you speak of?

It may be true that "As recently as 1999, it was commonly stated that babies
could not feel pain until they were a year old ..." In fact, that is the
actual statement in the Wikipedia article. It says nothing about "we"
believing it.

It wouldn't be the first time I disagreed with a "commonly stated" belief, but
I must admit I never heard this statement and a moment's reflection will show
that this is a bold claim that would need some substantial proof before it
could be believed.

In fact, if you go to the work cited in Wikipedia[1], you see:

> _As late as 1999, it was stated that “[p]ain experience is placed at
> approximately 12 months of age” (66)._

Checking that reference[2], we see in the abstract the statement

> _Pain experience is placed at approximately 12 months of age, though this is
> within the context of a continuum of awareness rather than a straight
> ‘on‐off’ switch. The major moral implication of this stance is to place the
> burden of proof for analgesic use onto clinical measures, rather than
> relying upon the, so far, poorly supported assumption of pain awareness._

That last sentence indicates that the whole paper is written to argue against
the _assumption of pain awareness_. On the basis of that snippet (I can't
access the full paper), it looks like the assertion in Wikipedia is not valid,
and your headline is even more misleading.

[1]:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3385812/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3385812/)

[2]:
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-8519.00...](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-8519.00129)

~~~
isomorph
Apologies. I was unthinkingly trying to condense the sentence from the article
into the character limit for HN titles

------
explorigin
Anyone who's ever seen an infant get a shot or be circumcised should know that
this is complete bunk. Babies don't cry for no reason.

~~~
fatnoah
I reportedly slept through my own circumcision and never seemed to even notice
getting shots. My own son never reacted to shots as a baby. I'm not saying it
didn't hurt, but I do think very young babies may feel pain differently and/or
that "feeling pain" also includes anticipation and other factors.

This is all MHO and anecdotal, so please don't think I'm trying to state
anything as fact or an educated opinion.

~~~
isomorph
Thanks for the addition to the discussion. Just wondering - was a family
member in the room when you were circumcised? I’m just trying to figure out if
the report of you sleeping through the circumcision was initially given by a
doctor/nurse and then repeated by family, or if a family member witnessed it
firsthand. (Simply because, anecdotally, even when the baby has screamed their
head off, the doctor/nurse will tell the parents that they slept through it,
so as not to distress the parents)

I’ve also heard the hypothesis that babies will go into shock much earlier
than adults and will therefore be silent, or start choking / having a seizure
silently, during traumatic surgery.

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gumby
Part of the origin of this “belief” was to justify things like neonatal
surgery (e.g. heart valve repair for “blue babies”) when there were no good
anesthesia protocols for newborns. Hard to do the job that you feel is saving
the kids life if you are making them suffer.

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martin1b
I've seen several videos where babies (most of them less than 20 weeks) feel
pain in-utero . The reaction is not coincidental but in direct response to the
stimulation.

