Preterm infants admitted to NICUs are exposed to a range of painful procedures. The exposure to pain during this critical of brain development may have adverse consequences. Application of nasal CPAP is one of the painful procedures. A consensus statement on neonatal pain made recommendations for analgesia for neonatal procedures. Topical lidocaine is frequently used as a topical anesthetic during venipuncture, heel lancing, circumcision, endotracheal intubations, nasogastric tube insertion, endoscopy and bronchoscopy. However, the use of topical lidocaine for its analgesic effect on application of nasal CPAP has not been evaluated.~This study proposes a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the relative efficacy of topical lidocaine on reducing pain associated with the application of nasal CPAP in preterm infants.
The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the relative efficacy of topical lidocaine on reducing pain associated with the application of nasal CPAP in preterm infants