Neonatal Pain: Suffering, Pain, and Risk of Brain Damage in the Fetus and Newborn

Giuseppe Buonocore · Carlo V. Bellieni

feb 2008 · Springer Science & Business Media

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For many years we have been talking about a very special patient, the embryo; and the numerous and encouraging successes brought about by embryofetal medicine in the application of both noninvasive therapies and invasive ultrasound-guided tre- ment are well known. On the other hand, it is more and more often the case today that the small patients in neonatal care are premature babies who have come to the world at a particul- ly low gestational age. This allows us to observe the continuity between the ph- es of growth inside the maternal uterus and after birth, which arrives at the correct moment for some lucky fetuses, for others very early, and for some altogether too soon. The neonatologists have the arduous task of sustaining these little patients in their strivings to survive, registering their energy and their vital dynamism, stu- ing the progressive development of the anatomical structures and the improvement of their physiology, verifying day by day the presence – sometimes fragile, so- times extremely resistant, but always human – of a child. A long line research has shown how, from the first moment onwards in that process of perfectly coordinated development that characterizes the life of the embryo, a human being gradually emerges who is increasingly able to interact with his or her environment.

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Giuseppe Buonocore is full professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Unit of Neonatology of the University Hospital of Siena.

He is involved in the coordination of numerous pan-European clinical trials, as for example of the European scientific network EURAIBI (acronym for EURope Against Infant Brain Injury). His research interests are in the mechanisms of cell damage in the neonatal brain, with special reference to hypoxia, the role of oxidant radicals in neonatal diseases and in babies with birth asphyxia. Additional research interest fields are ethics in perinatology and fetal and neonatal pain prevention. His research team is funded by several agencies including the Italian Ministry of University and Scientific Research -cofinance scheme for research projects of high national interest as well as European Community : NEOBRAIN project.

Author of more than 100 scientific publications in international journals with IF ("Pediatric Research", "Biology of Neonate", "Free Radical Biology and Medicine","Acta Pediatrica", "Archives Diseases in Children", " Journal of Pediatrics" and others).

He is Past-President of the European Society for Pediatric Research, and currently a member of the Editorial Board of "Biology of Neonate".

Dr. Bellieni, author of a chapter in the Encyclopedia of Pain, works in the University Hospital of Siena as well, and is a member of several national and international societiesm suche as the European Society of Pediatric Research, the Italian Society of Pediatrics and the Italian Society of Neonatology.