Live data from Hacker News

Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

nytimes.com

241–250 of 387 posts

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#241
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My stock joke is that if the doctor or nurse says it won’t hurt, it will hurt at least a little. If they say it will hurt a little, it will hurt a lot. If they say it will probably hurt, time for serious anesthesia. Also, there’s pretty much no such thing as minor surgery except maybe skin tag removal.

Lucky you, if you dont have genetics were anesthesia do not work properly. Then find a doctor, who accepts that problem and gets it over with painful but fast. The hardest part is if you have a dentists that insist on anesthesia must work, but it wont, so you must act your ass off to prentend to not be in pain, so he wont push syringe after syringe, doing nothing and waiting for 15 minutes in between while your tooth…

So you’re one too. No dental anesthetics work on me. I have to go under general anesthesia, where you’re knocked out so deep a machine has to take over your breathing. So every procedure starts at about $10,000 and that’s not counting the dental work. All out of pocket. No insurance coverage.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#242

Most people are familiar with the sound of a baby crying, and they think that's the worst sound a baby makes. It isn't. A normal baby's cry sounds absolutely nothing like a baby screaming in agony, which is a fact I discovered the first (and last) time I saw a video of a circumcision. Today we look back and can't imagine how people of centuries ago saw things like slavery and religious oppression as normal. Sometimes…

This inflicted pain and damage appears to have no significant impact on adult quality of life though. Circumcision may also even reduce the bacterial load and hence reduce chances of infections and cancer: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/12/10/acc-is-infant-circumci...

It's a non-issue.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#243
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Babies feeling pain is something that should be self-evident, shouldn't it?” I have yet to understand the historical underpinnings of this phenomenon, but as someone who deals with chronic pain, doctors don’t seem to be aware that people feel pain _in general_. I’m being sort of facetious, but any chronic pain community is full to the brim with stories of various medical professionals being skeptical of patients’ pa…

It’s because people lie for many reasons. To get out of work, get disability, make a claim, to get opioids because they’re addicted to them etc. As a doctor, you’re probably going to become cynical after a while. This is very different from a baby because they have little motivation to lie and you can see them reacting to simple painful situations like bumping their head.

> As a doctor, you’re probably going to become cynical after a while.

We should probably focus more on finding ways to reduce cynicism and lack of empathy in this profession than fighting false positives in the system.

> It’s because people lie for many reasons.

You should err on the side of caution and default to "they're probably not lying".

Most of us can agree that applying the logic you're describing to the law would be wrong. Imagine that instead of having the presumption of innocence, we'd assume that certain types of people are probably guilty, so we'll punish them pre-emptively.

This already happens, of course, because of racism, xenophobia etc... but we do agree that it's morally wrong and at least we're trying to fix it.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not to mention "simple" stuff like circumcision. You might have stumbled upon the real reason for this seemingly inexplicable delay in accepting that infants can feel pain: The circumcision industry. Presumably some doctors feared that parents would think twice about it if they knew that their son would be in agony (or need expensive painkillers) when undergoing that elective surgery. https://www.endalldisease.com/…

German law, BGB §1631d (last updated 2012) allows circumcision by qualified non-medical religious practitioners. Non-medical implies that they do not have access to proper painkillers. edit: within first 6 month of birth.

This speaks to the power religion (which is after all just a belief system) still has to be exempt from various laws. Religion is grandfathered in so many ways.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#246

Most people are familiar with the sound of a baby crying, and they think that's the worst sound a baby makes. It isn't. A normal baby's cry sounds absolutely nothing like a baby screaming in agony, which is a fact I discovered the first (and last) time I saw a video of a circumcision. Today we look back and can't imagine how people of centuries ago saw things like slavery and religious oppression as normal. Sometimes…

This inflicted pain and damage appears to have no significant impact on adult quality of life though. Circumcision may also even reduce the bacterial load and hence reduce chances of infections and cancer: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/12/10/acc-is-infant-circumci... It's a non-issue.

It's a form of genital mutilation. It would be wrong to call it a non-issue. It is moral one at the least.

I have no issue with consenting adults getting circumcised for what ever reason they want too. A baby, however, cannot possibly consent to such a thing.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#247
post #48

This is, I believe, one of the downsides of empiricism and the fixation on citation rather than observation and reason. The idea that a whole profession came to reject the idea that infants are able to feel pain is astonishing, especially considering anyone who has ever taken care of infants knows that these little human beings react to things which are known to be painful. Babies feeling pain is something that shoul…

> Babies feeling pain is something that should be self-evident, shouldn't it? We need to be careful here. Just because a system responds to painful stimulus does not necessarily mean that it "feels pain". Consider this: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/06/google-places-engine... Or this: https://spectrum.ieee.org/why-people-demanded-privacy-to-con... Or this: https://junkerhq.net/MGS2/MarkIII.html People tend to…

> Just because it seems conscious doesn't necessarily mean that it is.

What does consciousness have to do with pain ?

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#248

This is, I believe, one of the downsides of empiricism and the fixation on citation rather than observation and reason. The idea that a whole profession came to reject the idea that infants are able to feel pain is astonishing, especially considering anyone who has ever taken care of infants knows that these little human beings react to things which are known to be painful. Babies feeling pain is something that shoul…

It’s the same kind of insane lack of critical thinking that led people to be being buried alive because no one thought to check for the existence of a heartbeat despite heartbeats being known about since… forever

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#249
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Babies feeling pain is something that should be self-evident, shouldn't it?” I have yet to understand the historical underpinnings of this phenomenon, but as someone who deals with chronic pain, doctors don’t seem to be aware that people feel pain _in general_. I’m being sort of facetious, but any chronic pain community is full to the brim with stories of various medical professionals being skeptical of patients’ pa…

It’s because people lie for many reasons. To get out of work, get disability, make a claim, to get opioids because they’re addicted to them etc. As a doctor, you’re probably going to become cynical after a while. This is very different from a baby because they have little motivation to lie and you can see them reacting to simple painful situations like bumping their head.

They don't become cynical; they just don't really give a dam about pain, unless you are a high paying client.

And in this climate of all opiates are the devil, I get it.

We are in a weird state in pain managment.

We essentially don't have anything to cure chronic pain, except cutting nerves.

Opiates make people feel better physically, and emotionally.

They are addictive because they work. Unlike all those tricyclic/heterocyclic drugs.

Young people should never be on opiates, except during surgery.

Old people in pain should not be denied the drug. It should be a right.

(There are numerous studies of older people being given opiates for pain/misery, and most studies they did not want to increase their dosages.)

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#250
post #78
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. Lobotomies used to be common practice as well. Even a surgery performed recently, UPPP, for treating sleep apnea is "no longer recommended"... It was only five or ten years ago where they would perform this incredibly invasive surgery, but enough research shows they're not that effective.

What is considered to be the best treatment for apnea these days? Is it ESP, or something else? Besides CPAP of course.

Double jaw surgery. I had it last year for sleep apnea. I am not overweight, but had recessed jaws. If you do too, the surgery is worth pursuing.
Post reply on HN