Non-nutritive sucking, oral breast milk, and facilitated tucking relieve preterm infant pain during heel-stick procedures: A prospective, randomized controlled trial

The combined use of sucking + breast milk +tucking and sucking + breast milk effectively reduced preterm infants' mild pain and moderate-to-severe pain during heel-stick procedures. Adding facilitated tucking helped infants recover from pain across eight phases of heel-stick procedures. Our findings advance knowledge on the effects of combining expressed breast milk, sucking, and tucking on preterm infants' procedural pain.