Assessing pain and analgesia with a lidocaine-prilocaine emulsion in infants and toddlers during venipuncture

For many years it was assumed that young children have less pain than adults; painful procedures were sometimes performed on infants without any or with minimal analgesia.1 Recently an increasing number of clinicians and scientists have voiced their concerns about this practice, which has not been based on scientific evidence. 2 Venipunctures are frightening and painful experiences for children. 3 The pain of venipuncture has been shown in older children and adults to be alleviated by the application of the anesthetic cream EMLA (Eutectic Mixture of Local Anesthetics) .4-6 We compared pain response in infants and toddlers undergoing venipuncture in a placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover, randomized study. Our objective was to determine whether EMLA would decrease the pain response in infants and toddlers as in older children and adults. In addition, we wanted to assess the safety of EMLA in this age group.