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Dr. Anand showed through clinical trials that pre-term infants did perceive pain and that babies who were operated on without anesthesia had a “massive stress response.”

Annie Murphy Paul is working on a book about the lasting effects of early experiences and wrote an article entitled “The First Ache” that was published by the New York Times.  The article was about the issue of fetal pain.

Ms. Paul highlights the work of Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand. Twenty-five years ago, Dr. Anand was a resident at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, England, where his patients were pre-term infants in need of surgery. He discovered that infants returning from surgery were in significant distress and he had to spend considerable time stabilizing them. Dr. Anand realized that the problem was that these tiny children were given a paralytic to hold them still during surgery, but no anesthesia. The assumption was that their nervous system was too immature to register pain.

Dr. Anand showed through clinical trials that pre-term infants did perceive pain and that babies who were operated on without anesthesia had a “massive stress response.” Babies who were anesthetized appeared more stable afterwards and Dr. Anand showed that anesthesia during surgery decreased the mortality rate. His research revealed that unborn babies can perceive pain by 20 weeks, if not earlier.

The author’s interest in this research relates to her interest in whether early pain leaves a lasting or permanent imprint on the developing nervous system. In utero or early encounters with pain may alter how we handle pain later in life, becoming hypersensitive or indifferent to it.

Ms. Paul also raises the question of whether fetal pain is relevant to abortion discussions.  Would the knowledge that your unborn child will feel pain during an abortion affect your decision to abort?

Over the past two years, legislation requiring doctors to tell women seeking abortions (after 20 weeks) that the fetus can feel pain and to offer the fetus anesthesia has been introduced in 25 states. In Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Minnesota, and Oklahoma, the bills were passed.