Search

Immune system immaturity in newborns exposes them to infections, among which bloodstream infection is of great importance due to high mortality and morbidity and treatment costs. The aim of the present study was to evaluate common pathogens in blood culture positive cases and its determinants. This study was conducted in two phases, including a cross-sectional phase to collect the cases of definitive septicemia and a case-control phase on neonates admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of Vali-e-Asr Hospital with clinical suspicion of sepsis during 2015-2019. The eligible cases were selected based on the study criteria. After extracting descriptive statistics, to evaluate causal relationships, culture-positive and culture negative cases were compared in terms of neonatal disease in the second phase. SPSS-22 was used for data analysis. The most common bacterial families were Staphylococcus (34.30%), Acinetobacter (10.46%), and Klebsiella (7.55%), among which coagulase negative Staphylococcus was the most common organism (13.08%). The most common antibiotics prescribed were ampicillin (75.1%), amikacin (58%), and gentamycin (44.8%). Factors that had a significant association were the occurrence of septicemia were gestational hypertension, premature rupture of membranes, conjunctivitis, TORCH infections, and low gestational age. The results of this study will be helpful in anticipation and management of neonatal septicemia through shedding light on some determinants of common blood culture pathogens like infections and obstetric complications in NICU admitted neonates.

Constant breastfeeding that depends on the family support. Fathers' involvement is as an important factor of successful breastfeeding. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of fathers' participation in constant breastfeeding in Vali-E-Asr Hospital, Tehran, Iran. This interventional study was piloted on spouses of pregnant women participating in pregnancy courses. The case group consisted of fathers attending training courses of breastfeeding during pregnancy (Group A), and the control group was made up of fathers who did not take part in training courses (Group B). The courses were held three times from the 30th week of gestation to the end of pregnancy in a family health research center. Fathers attended three training sessions where they were trained by brochures. After delivery newborns were weighted and examined for jaundice (3-5 days, 30 days, three and six months after birth). According to mothers' views, spouses' participation, encouragement and support in group A, was 11 times more than group B. It means that 47 (94%) of spouses in the group A participated in mothers' constant breastfeeding, but fathers' participation in group B was 60% (30 spouses). This study showed that breastfeeding was more constant in the group that fathers participated in breastfeeding training course. One of the reasons for such a significant difference was spouses' participation, encouragement and support in the trained group. This study showed that fathers' involvement in training programs may influence constancy of breastfeeding.

This study was designed to assess the frequency of exclusive breastfeeding in two health centers of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical sciences in Khak Sefid, Tehran, Iran. A total of 175 mothers, referred for the third dose of their infants' DPT vaccination program participated in the study by completing a questionnaire regarding characteristics of their pregnancy, delivery and exclusive breastfeeding within the first six months of birth. Two-variable analysis and logistic regression test were applied to evaluate factors influencing exclusive breastfeeding. Results indicated that the frequency of exclusive breastfeeding, i.e., breastfeeding within the first six months of birth without the use of any other food with or without vitamin supplementation, was 31.17% (95% CI=23.77%-38.57%), which means 48 infants of 154