Babies Feel Pain at 20 Weeks

LifeNews.com 2/12

Leading Physician Convinced Babies Feel Pain at 20 Weeks of Pregnancy
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) --

A leading physician who has investigated the pain premature infants feel says he's convinced that unborn children have the capacity to feel pain as early as 20 weeks into pregnancy. Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand, a University of Arkansas professor, is the foremost authority on the subject. He recently spoke with the New York Times about his research. Anand says it started at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, England when he was a resident at a neonatal intensive care unit. He noticed babies would come back from surgeries in terrible condition and realized it was because they were suffering through the operations without anesthesia. Clinical trials eventually showed that babies suffered massive stress without it and babies who received anesthesia beforehand were 15 percent more likely to survive such early operations. Today, the standard of care that Anand discovered is routine. As technology advanced, so did the ability to determine when babies began to have the capacity to feel pain.