Health aNd Fitness Guide

Feeding babies sugar solution two minutes before vaccination may lessen the pain of injection. Researchers at the Pennsylvania State University studied 100 infants — half of them were given sugar solution and the others sterile water — and assessed their crying, body posture, facial expression, and behavior immediately after giving the shot. They found that giving 2ml of a 24 per cent oral sucrose solution to infants two minutes before immunization was effective in decreasing pain and shortening the time of their returning to a near-normal state.