Making sure a baby is warm whilst receiving an injection might be a better way of reducing pain than the methods currently used by doctors.

Keeping a baby warm before an injection has a better effect than either giving them a dummy or a sugar pill beforehand.

The small trial was carried out at the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital, where 47 healthy newborns were split into the three groups before their hepatitis B vaccination.

Researchers assessed the babies heart rates and also how much they cried and grimaced after the injections, with the finding that the newborns who were warmed stopping crying and grimacing earlier than both other groups.

Almost a quarter of warmed babies did not cry at all whereas all of those given sugar did cry, with researchers concluding that the warming method was “natural, easy and performed better”.