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FETAL PAIN: Ten Questions Answered
By Jean A. Wright, M.D., M.B.A.
Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Emory School of Medicine
(Information provided in her personal capacity)
1. Can an unborn baby feel pain?
Up until recently, few people ever asked, “does the baby feel pain during the abortion? or how early can a fetus feel pain?” The science is available now to answer those questions.
2. So when is an unborn infant viable? Don’t all abortions just affect infants who could not live outside the womb?
Viability is certainly much earlier than was ever thought possible in 1973. As medical science pushes the frontier of fetal viability to 23 weeks, and perhaps sooner with the advent of artificial wombs and placental support – there is a possibility that a definition of viability based upon gestational age will soon be irrelevant.
3. What is the earliest sign of pain perception?
Unborn infants have pain receptors on their face by 7 weeks of development, and over their entire body by the 20th week of gestation in the same or greater density than adults.
4. How do we know those pain receptors are really transmitting a pain signal?
EEGs have recorded the response to noxious stimuli as early as 26 weeks.
5. How do we know pain is perceived the same in pre-born infants as in adults?
The same way that children and adults respond to pain with changes in their hormones, the 20 – 35 week pre-born infants also respond.
6. How does the threshold for pain differ from adults?
It takes less of a noxious stimulus to create pain in the unborn child.
7. Over time, adults with chronic pain learn ways to cope. Can the unborn cope?
The fibers and substances needed to feel pain are present; but the
mechanisms needed to modulate and tone down the response to pain are
poorly developed.
8. Do the pre-born and newborns feel more or less pain than adults?
Newborns not only feel pain; they react to pain with 3 – 5 times the response of adults.
9. How do we know the pain impacts the baby in a substantial way?
The response to pain is not inconsequential. Infants who were not treated for their pain during operations had worse clinical outcomes.
10. Since Fetal Surgery centers provide anesthesia for the pre-born, should pain to the unborn child be a consideration in an abortion?
If a pre-born child requires anesthesia for fetal surgery, then shouldn’t the logical extension be that children undergoing abortion also feel pain – and would have the same requirements for anesthesia?
Download the full, eight-page white paper on fetal pain
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