More Caution Needed When Prescribing Antibiotics to Newborns
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More caution should be used in the use of antibiotics say researchers who found a decrease in healthy gut bacteria and an increase in antimicrobial resistance in babies treated with antibiotics in the first week of life. In their study, published in Nature Communications , researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Birmingham, and the Spaarne Hospital and University Medical Centre Utrecht, The Netherlands analysed how antibiotics affect the gut microbiome of a newborn.
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@senjuti The authors explained how under current guidelines broad-spectrum antibiotics are prescribed to up to 10% of all newborns for suspected infections, with this 'over-prescription' aiming to ensure early treatment for those who are ultimately found to have an infection, as any delay may quickly become life-threatening. Experts argue though that, in most cases, the antibiotics are prescribed unnecessarily, as only a small proportion of those who receive the drugs are eventually diagnosed with an infection.