Parents Are Part of the Solution: Rethinking Pain Management in the NICU
What if one of the most powerful ways to comfort a baby during a painful medical procedure was something a parent could provide?
For babies in the NICU, blood tests, injections and other procedures are often necessary parts of medical care. But these experiences can also cause pain and stress, and research has shown that repeated, poorly managed pain can affect a baby's developing brain.
The encouraging news? Parents can play an important role in reducing that pain.
Through an international research collaboration, the Canadian Premature Babies Foundation (CPBF) is helping advance a growing movement to make parents essential partners in neonatal pain management, not simply observers of their baby's care.
Bringing Parents into the Conversation
Earlier this month, CPBF Executive Director Fabiana Bacchini joined Dr. Marsha Campbell-Yeo in Turku, Finland, for a week of international collaboration focused on improving neonatal care and strengthening family involvement.
The week began with a meeting of the POP research group (Parent-led pain management to Optimize neonatal Pain care), led by Emma Olsson and Mats Eriksson.
Bringing together parents, researchers and clinicians from Finland, Sweden, Canada, Ukraine and France, the group is exploring how parents can be more meaningfully involved in preventing and managing pain in newborns.
A central question drives this work: If research shows that parents can help reduce their baby's pain, why isn't their involvement consistently part of everyday NICU care?
The Evidence Is There. Now It's Time for Action.
A 2026 paper published in Acta Paediatrica, "Parent-Led Pain Management in Neonatal Care—Time to Move Forward," calls for greater parental involvement in pain assessment, planning, management and evaluation.
Co-authored by Fabiana Bacchini, Dr. Marsha Campbell-Yeo and international colleagues, the paper highlights an important gap between what research tells us and what happens in clinical practice.
An international survey found that while 67% of responding neonatal units had local pain management guidelines, only 40% of those guidelines recommended parent-led interventions or parental involvement in pain assessment.
Yet simple, evidence-based approaches such as skin-to-skin contact, breastfeeding and parents singing to their babies can help reduce pain and stress during medical procedures.
Moving Beyond Family Engagement
The Finland visit continued with the SCENE Symposium, where parents, clinicians and researchers from around the world explored family engagement in neonatal care.
Fabiana and Dr. Campbell-Yeo shared CPBF's work to bring parents meaningfully into research and reflected on what it takes to make family-integrated care a reality.
In Turku, they saw an approach in which parents are fully integrated into their baby's care team, supported by systems designed to keep families together.
The experience raised an important question: If this level of family involvement is possible in one healthcare system, what can others learn from it?
For CPBF, the message extends beyond bedside care. Parents shouldn't simply be invited to participate in research. They should help shape the questions being asked, identify priorities, contribute to the research process and ensure findings reach the families who need them.
The goal isn't just to engage families. It's to build care and research systems where families are inherently part of the process.
What Can Parents Do Today?
Parents don't have to wait for research to become routine practice to begin conversations about comforting their babies.
CPBF offers practical, evidence-based information about ways parents and caregivers can help reduce pain and stress during NICU procedures, including kangaroo care, breastfeeding and other comforting techniques.
Ask your baby's healthcare team which approaches are appropriate and how you can be involved.
Because parents aren't just visitors in the NICU. They're an essential part of their baby's care.
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