Comment by PostOnce

I think 3131s's theory is that the amount of pain from a needle is much less than say scraping your knee, hardly traumatic, and is guaranteed to work better, faster, and more reliably than a spoon. Why risk the spoon not working (and therefore further dehydrating the child and increasing risk of something really bad happening) when all we are talking about is an IV, not something actually traumatic like an amputation.