The correlation between invasive care procedures and the occurrence of neonatal sepsis

Objective: To correlative the invasive care procedures applied to very-low-birth-weight infants with the occurrence of neonatal sepsis. Methods: Retrospective, longitudinal cohort study undertaken through the investigation of secondary data between 2008 and 2012. The infants' characteristics were analyzed by means of the Mann-Whitney test (means) and the chi-square test to compare frequencies. All variables with significance of p<0.20 in the bivariate analysis were included in a logistic regression model. Results: The data demonstrated fourteen infants with an episode of late sepsis. The mean gestational age was 30 weeks. Female gender and cesarean birth were the most frequent. The birth weight and the use of an arterial umbilical catheter explained the occurrence of sepsis, offering an 8.5 times higher risk for the outcome. Conclusion: Vascular accesses need start insertion and handling techniques to improve the health indicators.