Background:

Neonatal sepsis is a systemic infection of bacterial, viral, or fungal origin that is associated with hemodynamic changes and other clinical appearances with a positive blood culture in the 1stmonth of life.

Objective:

To characterize the clinical evolution of neonatal sepsis at a tertiary care hospital in Mexico.

Material and methods:

Observational, retrospective, and cross-sectional study in Mexico City between 2016 and 2020. The inclusion criteria were patients aged < 28 days and a clinical diagnosis of neonatal sepsis.

Results:

Ninety-six newborns with suspicion of neonatal sepsis were included, of which 64 (66.7%) were male. The final diagnosis of 58 (60.4%) was early-onset sepsis (EOS), 31 (32.3%) was late-onset sepsis (LOS), 7 (7.9%) were discharged with another diagnosis, and 5 (5.6%) died during hospitalization. Fifteen peripheral blood cultures and five umbilical catheter blood cultures showed growth. The predominance of isolation was Gram-positive, with 65% of these. In the early-onset group, patients were younger, had lower weight, lower APGAR scores, greater need for early neonatal resuscitation, and a higher proportion of a history of maternal infection than in the late-onset group.

Conclusion:

EOS was more frequent than LOS in a 2:1 ratio, and its overall mortality was 5.2%.