NIPE is related to parasympathetic activity. Is it also related to comfort?

Excerpt

Neurodevelopment of newborns can be impaired by many “stressful” events, with long-term consequences: pain, discomfort, hypoxia, even maternal stress has a negative impact. Experimental and clinical studies have shown that stress and/or pain during the perinatal period could negatively influence the long-term programming of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, which could account for abnormal responses to stress later in life, and may increase the risk of developing metabolic and cardiovascular diseases in adulthood [1, 2]. Perinatal stressful events are probably related to impaired autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity and a decreased parasympathetic activity in particular, which can easily be measured by modern monitors using e.g. heart rate variability analysis (HRV) [3, 4]. The University Hospital of Lille, France, has been part of several clinical studies evaluating how an HRV based index, the Analgesia Nociception Index (ANI, MDMS, Loos, France) could help evaluate the analgesia/nociception balance during general anesthesia [5] but also how ANI evidenced a decreased parasympathetic activity during a procedural pain in children [6]. …