Antibiotic Stewardship Reassessment of Guidelines for Management of Neonatal Sepsis

In 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provided updated guidelines for prevention of perinatal group B streptococcus disease. In 2012, the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committee on the Fetus and Newborn (COFN) provided a clinical report which suggested approaches to infants with risk factors for EOS which would increase empirical antibiotic use beyond the CDC guidelines. This Clinics article reviews the CDC guidelines and 2012 COFN report, summarizes the 2014 commentary provided by COFN members which provided a revised clinical algorithm, and discusses mechanisms which could reduce the number of well-appearing term infants exposed to empirical antibiotics.