Factors Influencing the Establishment of the Neonatal Bacterial Flora

Abstract

Systematic monitoring of neonatal flora provided a background of normal data necessary to interpret bacterial cultures obtained in infants suspected of infection and to evaluate environmental control procedures. Automatic data processing proved indispensible in the accumulation, retrieval, and analysis of a large volume of data and in evaluation of the relative significance of each host factor. Nearly 1,400 newborns were included in this study of aerobic bacterial flora of the skin and respiratory tract. The umbilicus was colonized with Staphylococcus epidermidis, Escherichia coli, Enterobacter, and the “other bacilli” group to a greater extent than the nares in the first three days of life. Premature newborns had a greater prevalence of S aureus on the umbilicus and Pseudomonas in the nares than full-term infants. Our findings are contrasted with previous observations and the implications are discussed.