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17/10/2013

Study Reveals How To Protect Babies From Infections

A new study has provided vital information on the best way to protect babies from infections.

The collaborative study, between Public Health England (PHE) and parenting club Bounty and which has been published in the journal PLOS ONE, is the first of its kind and looks at the contact patterns of infants to assess and predict risks of transmitting infectious diseases.

It found infants have little contact with adolescents and spend more time with their mothers than anyone else, providing valuable information on the best strategies to protect this age group from infections.

The study followed 115 healthy infants for 24 hours, and noted the duration and type of interaction they had with each individual they came into contact with. It was revealed that infants interact with, on average, seven people a day, but this ranged from between one and 19 people.

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Around 55% of all newborn contacts occurred with people outside of the household, and it is these social interactions that could help highlight where exposure to infectious diseases may occur.

Key findings from the study, which split the infants in two groups – under 10 weeks old and aged between 11 weeks to 12 months old – revealed:

  • Older infants had less than 50% of all contact at home, with slightly higher contact in settings outside the household such as in GP practices, mother-and-baby groups, shopping centres and parks.


  • Younger infants had intense contact within households lasting more than 4 hours (44%)


  • 92% of the mothers in the study had long physical contact with the infant, compared to 45% of the same contact made with siblings.


  • The babies had more contact with females (60%) than males.


  • The least amount of contact was with adolescents.


Study author, Dr Albert Jan van Hoek, an infectious disease expert at PHE, said: "Knowledge of the contact patterns of babies is essential to understand who is most likely to infect them and what the best strategies are to protect them from infections until they are old enough to be vaccinated themselves.

"Although babies have intense interaction with their mother, father and siblings, they still see a lot of people outside of their immediate family.

"The best way parents can protect their children is to ensure they receive their routine childhood vaccination on time. PHE will use the newly collected data to improve their transmission models of infectious diseases."

(JP/IT)

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"A new study has provided vital information on the best way to protect babies from infections."