Exclusive breast feeding and dehydration fever in newborns during the first days of life.

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of dehydration fever in infants admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) from the well newborn nursery with fever in the first days of life. Study design: Retrospective data analysis of term infants admitted to the NICU from the well newborn nursery with fever ( n  = 75). Infants were divided into two groups based on hydration status using clinical and laboratory signs of dehydration. Clinical and laboratory variables were compared between the two groups. Results: Fifty-three of the 75 infants admitted to the NICU with fever had clinical and laboratory signs of dehydration (71%). Infants with dehydration were more likely to be exclusively breast fed and present with fever at >24 h of age. There were no positive blood or cerebrospinal fluid cultures in infants with dehydration. The incidence of dehydration fever increased after implementation of an "Exclusive Breast Feeding" policy from 1.4/1000 to 3.5/1000 live births ( p ≤ .01). Conclusions: Dehydration is associated with fever in exclusively breast fed infants during the first several days of life. There were no cases of serious bacterial or viral infections in the cohort of febrile infants with clinical and laboratory signs of dehydration.