Pain in early life linked to migraine development

28 October 2005:- Children who are admitted to neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) after birth may have an increased risk of migraines in later life, US study results suggest.

Writing in the journal Pediatrics, Drs Seetha Maneyapanda, from Princeton University in New Jersey, and Anuradha Venkatasubramanian, from Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey, explain that previous research has indicted that pain or stress in early childhood can increase an individual's sensitivity to pain and stress in later life.

For their study, the researchers assessed the medical records of 280 children who suffered from migraine attacks to see whether there was an association between admittance to NICUs and the later development of such headaches.

Drs Maneyapanda and Venkatasubramanian found that children who had been admitted to NICUs after birth developed migraines at a significantly earlier age than those who did not require placement in such units.

Furthermore, children who had been admitted to NICUs tended to require more migraine pain-relief medications than those who had not been in NICUs.

"On the basis of these findings, we speculate that pain experience as a neonate...can alter the later experience of pain," the researchers conclude.

However, they add that further research is needed to "establish a link between early pain experience and subsequent pain syndromes" and to investigate whether certain pain treatments in early life can help prevent longer-lasting sensitivity to pain.

From:   http://www.patienthealthinternational.com/conditionnews/8912.aspx