Family care reduces the incidence of neonatal sepsis: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Niloofar Ganji; Mashriq Alganabi; Masaya Yamoto; Sinobol Chusilp; Agostino Pierro; Bo Li

doi:10.3389/fped.2023.1089229

Family care reduces the incidence of neonatal sepsis: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Front Pediatr. 2023 Apr 12:11:1089229. doi: 10.3389/fped.2023.1089229. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Niloofar Ganji¹, Mashriq Alganabi¹, Masaya Yamoto¹, Sinobol Chusilp¹, Agostino Pierro¹, Bo Li¹

Affiliation

¹ Division of General and Thoracic Surgery, Translational Medicine Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada.

Abstract

Purpose: Family-involved care in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) helps to alleviate neonatal anxiety and promotes breastmilk intake, body growth and neurological development, but its effect on reducing the incidence of neonatal sepsis is not known. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCT) to evaluate whether neonates receiving family care have a lower incidence of neonatal sepsis compared to neonates receiving standard NICU care.

Methods: MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, and CENTRAL were searched for RCTs that compared preterm neonates receiving family care vs. standard NICU care. From 126 articles that were identified and screened, 34 full-text articles were assessed for eligibility, and 5 RCTs were included. The primary outcome was the development of sepsis. The RevMan 5.4 software was used to conduct the Meta-analysis.

Results: The metanalysis, based on 5 RCTs demonstrated that neonates receiving family-involved care had significantly lower incidence of sepsis (12.0% vs. 16.3%), increased body weight, and reduced length of hospital stay compared to those receiving standard NICU care.

Conclusion: This study suggests that family-involved care in NICU can (i) reduce the incidence of neonatal sepsis, (ii) improve growth, and (iii) reduce the length of hospital stay. This study highlights the need for evaluating whether family-involved care improves other neonatal outcomes.

Keywords: family care; kangaroo care; necrotizing entercolitis; neonatal sepsis; sepsis.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

BL has received Restracomp Fellowship, The Hospital for Sick Children and Early Career Award Program grant from the Thrasher Research Fund (14503). NG is the recipient of Restracomp Scholarship from the Hospital for Sick Children. AP is the recipient of a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Foundation Grant 353857. The funding had no impact on study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, the writing of the report, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.