Pain and suffering: the ethics of our words within and beyond the NICU

Published on June 30, 2026

Med Humanit. 2026 Jun 29:medhum-2026-013838. doi: 10.1136/medhum-2026-013838. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

How should we put the experiences of young children into language? What are the ethics of using one's words to describe the world of an other? Particularly those who do not linguistically live their experiences? This paper explores these questions by dwelling on the topics of pain and suffering as experienced by newborns receiving medical care. We are stuck with a certain sense of ethical dis-ease that the words we use to describe the lived experiences of newborns ultimately cannot help being insufficient, imperfect, inadequate, incomplete or otherwise, such that they must be offered with humility, wonder and care. And yet, this does not diminish the need to orient to a child's world, to avert and respond to their possible experiences of pain and suffering.

PMID:42373313 | DOI:10.1136/medhum-2026-013838

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