Babies with low-risk deliveries may not need antibiotics at birth: Study Latest Videos
News 24
A team of researchers has found that infants born through uncomplicated caesarean delivery, without labour or membrane rupture before delivery and no concern for infection, should not need antibiotics at birth.
The research has been published in the 'Pediatrics Journal'. "Given the risks associated with early-onset sepsis in infants, it isn't surprising that newborns are often administered antibiotics immediately after birth," said first author Dustin D. Flannery, DO, MSCE, an attending neonatologist and clinical researcher at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia."However, our study shows that it is safe to withhold antibiotics in infants, including those born preterm, with low-risk delivery characteristics. Such infants are unlikely to be infected at birth, and can be spared the potential complications of systemic antibiotic exposure," he added.
Newborn infants are at risk for early-onset sepsis (EOS), a life-threatening infection that can occur within 72 hours after birth, due to exposure to bacteria during the birthing process. Predicting which infants will develop EOS, however, is challenging.
This has led to an order of magnitude higher rate of antibiotic use compared to the rate of infants with confirmed infection. Prolonged antibiotic use among newborns is associated with serious adverse outcomes among preterm infants and potential longstanding complications among full-term infants, underscoring the need for a better way to assess infection risk.
Since the primary way a newborn is exposed to bacteria is through the delivery process, the researchers decided to analyse delivery characteristics to see if they could help providers identify infants at the lowest risk of EOS. In a retrospective study, they assessed all infants born between 2009 and 2014 at two Philadelphia birth hospitals who had blood or cerebrospinal fluid culture obtained within 72 hours after birth.
They examined medical record data for confirmed infection and for delivery characteristics, defining a "low-risk" delivery as a caesarean section, without rupture of amniotic membranes prior to delivery; an absence of labor or attempts to induce labour; and an absence of suspected or confirmed maternal intraamniotic infection or foetal distress.
The researchers also included infants born across the gestational age spectrum. Prior studies have assessed EOS risk in both extremely preterm (less than 28 weeks gestation) and full-term (37 weeks or more) infants, but few have analysed the risk among late and moderately preterm infants (28-36 weeks' gestation), despite the fact that these infants make up the bulk of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admissions.