Children's Hospital Colorado

Update on AAP Guidelines for Febrile Infants (S6:E17)

About 14 out of every 1,000 healthy infants born full-term develop a fever between the ages of 8 days to 60 days old. While most fevers do not lead to severe illness, it can be challenging to immediately identify the cause of a baby’s fever or infants who may be at risk for developing severe bacterial infections.

Listen to pediatric experts discuss treating febrile infants

In this episode, Samir Shah, MD, joins us from the AAP National Conference & Exhibition in Anaheim, California, to discuss the updated AAP guidelines for well-appearing infants between 8 and 60 days old who develop a fever at or above 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Utilizing this new evidence-based guideline, we take a deep dive into the changing epidemiology of serious bacterial infections in febrile infants, advances in technology and evolving research strategies.

Dr. Shah is the Director of Hospital Medicine at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.

In this episode, our experts discuss:

  • The impact of evolving bacteriology on infant infections, including E. coli, listeria and group B strep
  • Inflammatory markers, such as white blood cell and neutrophil counts, c-reactive protein and procalcitonin
  • Improvements in pathogen identification
  • An overview of AAP guidelines for febrile infants
  • Risk of bacterial infections by age
  • Workup recommendations for the three different age groups
  • How does vaccination status impact the guidelines?

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