Antibiotic Use in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Practicing Integrative Medicine

This study sought to identify if an Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) integrating complementary medicine has low antibiotic prescribing.

The researchers conducted a retrospective analysis at the level-2 NICU of the Filderklinik, an integrative medicine hospital in Southern Germany, to compare antibiotic use locally and internationally; to compare neonates with suspected infection, managed with and without antibiotics; and to describe use and safety of complementary medicinal products.

Among 7778 live births, 1086 neonates were hospitalized between 2014 and 2017. Two hundred forty-six were diagnosed with suspected or confirmed infection, their median gestational age was 40.3 weeks (range 29-42), 3.25% had a birthweight <2500 g, 176 were treated with antibiotics for a median duration of 4 days, 6 had culture-proven infection (0.77 per 1000 live births), and 2.26% of live births were started on antibiotics. A total of 866 antibiotic treatment days corresponded to 111 antibiotic days per 1000 live births and 8.8 antibiotic days per 100 hospital days. Neonates managed with antibiotics more often had fever and abnormal laboratory parameters than those managed without. Complementary medicinal products comprising 71 different natural substances were used, no side effect or adverse event were described. A subanalysis using the inclusion criteria of a recent analysis of 13 networks in Europe, North America, and Australia confirmed this cohort to be among the lowest prescribing networks.

The authors concluded that antibiotic use was low in this NICU in both local and international comparison, while the disease burden was in the mid-range, confirming an association between integrative medicine practice and low antibiotic prescribing in newborns. Complementary medicinal products were widely used and well tolerated.

I have often suggested that somone does a study to assess the usage of meat products in a vegetarian restaurant. I am sure it would generate resuts that are at least as meaningful as the ones reported by the team of anthroposophic geniuses responsible for this paper. Here are their affiliations:

• ¹ARCIM Institute, Filderstadt, Germany.
• ²Department of Pediatrics, Filderklinik, Filderstadt, Germany.
• ³Department of Neonatology, University Hospital Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
• ⁴Center for Integrative Pediatrics, Fribourg Cantonal Hospital, Fribourg, Switzerland.
• ⁵Department of Community Health, Fribourg University, Fribourg, Switzerland.
• ⁶Institute of Precision Medicine, University Furtwangen, Furtwangen, Germany.

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