Surgeries were commonly performed on infants without anesthesia due to the belief they could not feel pain
the verdict
SUPPORTED
the evidence backs this
confidence 82/100
Historical medical practices frequently involved performing surgeries on infants with minimal or no anesthesia, driven by the erroneous belief that infants could not feel pain or lacked mature pain perception.
Evidence for · 3
Personal perspectives: Infant pain—A multidisciplinary journey
2020 · cited by 13
Notes that historical assumptions erroneously held that newborns were insensitive to pain.
See more details
More for · 2
Postoperative Pain Management in Neonatal Surgery: Evaluating the Role of Multimodal Analgesia
2025 · cited by 0
Acknowledges that historically neonates were undertreated for pain due to various past medical assumptions and challenges.
The infancy of infant pain research: the experimental origins of infant pain denial.
2013 · cited by 0
Explores the historical perspective of infant pain denial, confirming that infant surgeries were routinely conducted with minimal or no anesthesia into the 1980s based on the belief that infants lacked mature pain perception.