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VIDEO: Treating fever in young infants
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NEW YORK – Sarah S. Long, MD, discussed using aggressive management to treat infants aged younger than under 1 month for fever without clear evidence of infection at the 2017 Infectious Diseases in Children Symposium.
Long, professor of pediatrics at Drexel University College of Medicine and chief of infectious diseases at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, Philadelphia, said that in treating infants with fever in the first month of life, pediatricians must be very careful.
These infants have the highest risk of bacterial invasive infections and viral infections in their life, Long told Infectious Diseases in Children.
Because infants that young have not developed a repertoire of responses that physicians can judge when providing stimuli, these infants should receive aggressive management for the symptoms, which usually requires hospitalization and a brief period of antibiotics, she said.
Older children with fever and no clear evidence of infection aged 2 to 24 months can be treated using clinical judgment, thanks to the advent of conjugate pneumococcal vaccines, Long said.