This cannot happen until certain brain structures connecting the thalamus and the cerebral cortex develop during the third trimester of pregnancy.
Sorry lads, these statements are a false premise. Pain does not require the "conscious recognition" of anything. Our responses to pain occur in the central nervous system at the level of the brainstem, not via the cerebral cortex. Put your hand on a hot stove and your body will move your hand before you can even think about what is happening. After the fact, your cerebral cortex will say: "oh I put my hand on a hot stove, now where's the aloe vera gel?"
You're referring to a pain response within the sympathetic nervous system. Since a SNS pain impulse happens outside the central nervous system there is no perception of the pain; no perception... no conscious experience of the pain.
The SNS is a fast bypass of the CNS to make things like your example (the hot stove) instant reflexes. If the impulse had to travel the relatively long journey up the spinal cord, and then be "contemplated" by the CNS the damage being done by the hot stove would be much worse.
