PURPOSE: to study the value of fundamental frequency and its variations found in newborn pain cry. METHODS: emissions of 111 healthy and term newborns were recorded, whose lifetime varied from 24 to 72 hours, during venepuncture procedures. The acoustic analysis was realized with VOXMETRIA 1.1 software, with an extract from the fundamental frequency value and GRAM 5.7, in order to verify the occurrence of fundamental frequency variations such as breaks, double harmonic breaks and higher fundamental frequency. The NIPS scale was carried out during venepuncture. The statistical analysis is descriptive with extract from the mean values, standard deviation and frequency of event occurrence. RESULTS: the newborns showed 100% of their emissions with frequency variations, in other words, breaks and double harmonic breaks. The higher fundamental frequency was found in 34.2% of the newborns. CONCLUSION: the newborn communicates pain through cry. The newborn pain emission is tense and strident with higher fundamental frequency and variations founds at the spectrographic tracing such as breaks, double harmonic breaks and higher fundamental frequency. Such characteristics are important to attract adult attention concerning as for a fast support to the newborns and to help in the evaluation of pain during a procedure.
Speech Acoustics; Crying; Pain; Infant; Newborn
