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[Infant pneumonia at periodic check-ups. Characteristics and associated factors]
I López1, H Sepúlveda, I Valdés
1Escuela de Salud Pública, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Chile. Santiago de Chile.
Insights
One in three healthy newborns developed pneumonia within their first year, with low socioeconomic status being a significant risk factor. This study tracked children
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Infectious Diseases
- Epidemiology
- Public Health
Context:
- Pneumonia is a leading cause of mortality in children under four in America.
- Understanding early childhood pneumonia incidence and risk factors is crucial for public health interventions.
- This study focuses on healthy newborns in a specific urban setting.
Purpose:
- To prospectively follow healthy newborns until two years of age.
- To document pneumonia episodes, their clinical features, and associated risk factors.
- To identify factors influencing pneumonia incidence and hospitalization.
Summary:
- Two hundred ten pneumonia episodes were recorded in 437 healthy newborns, with 66% occurring in the first year.
- Risk factors included male sex, low birth weight, limited breastfeeding, and lower maternal education/socioeconomic status.
- Hospitalization rates were significant, particularly for those with multiple risk factors; two child deaths were reported.
Impact:
- Identifies key modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors for early childhood pneumonia.
- Highlights the disproportionate impact of socioeconomic status on child health outcomes.
- Provides data to inform targeted prevention and management strategies for pediatric pneumonia.
Background:
Each year, pneumonia is the cause of death of forty thousand children under four years of age in America.
Aim:
To follow children from birth until two years of age and record episodes of pneumonia, their features and associated factors.
Patients And Methods:
Four hundred thirty seven healthy newborns were followed in a public out patient clinic of Northern Santiago until two years of age. Pneumonia was diagnosed using clinical or radiological criteria. The mothers of each child were interviewed in each follow up visit.
Results:
Two hundred ten episodes of pneumonia were detected during the study, 0.6 episodes per child and 1.8 episodes per affected child. Sixty six percent of episodes occurred during the first year of age. Total prevalence was 22.4 and 14.3% during the first and second year of age respectively. Semi annual incidence was 13.8 and 5.5% during the first and fourth semester respectively. Children that had pneumonia, were male in a higher proportion, had a lower birth weight, had higher number of brothers, mothers with less that 8 years of school courses and a lower socioeconomic level. During the first year of life, breast feeding during less than four months and a birth date during spring and summer were associated with a higher incidence of pneumonia. Seventy seven episodes, that occurred in 48 children, required hospitalization. The hospitalization rate for the whole cohort was 13.4% percent and 41.2% for affected children. Mean hospital stay was 5.8 days. Risk factors for hospitalization were male sex, less than four months of breast feeding, low birth weight, to have brothers, a lower mother education and lower socioeconomic level. Two children died.
Conclusions:
One out of three healthy newborns had pneumonia during the first year of life and a low socioeconomic level was an important risk factor.