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Antenatal antibiotic exposure in preterm infants with necrotizing enterocolitis
A S Weintraub1, L Ferrara, L Deluca
1Division of Newborn Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Kravis Children's Hospital, The Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY 10029, USA. andrea.weintraub@mssm.edu
Objective:
To determine whether an association exists between antenatal antibiotic exposure and incidence of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in low birth weight infants.
Study Design:
A retrospective case-control study was performed on all infants with a diagnosis of NEC born at our institition between 1988 and 2006. Medical histories of all infants with a diagnosis of NEC ≥Bell's stage IIA and matched controls without NEC were reviewed. Maternal and neonatal characteristics were compared using the Mantel-Haenszel chi-square procedure, and logistic regression models were constructed to account for confounding.
Result:
Clinical data for 97 matched pairs were analyzed. The adjusted odds ratio (OR) for antenatal exposure to ampicillin was significantly greater for infants who developed NEC (OR 2.3, 95% confidence interval 1.1, 4.8, P=0.003) than for control infants.
Conclusion:
Infants who developed NEC were more likely to have a history of in utero exposure to ampicillin in the immediate antepartum period than infants who did not develop NEC.
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