geoffrey modest medical blogs

  A news release last week published an oral presentation from the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at the ESCMID Global 2026 meeting in Munich:   https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1124038  . thanks again to Paul Susman for bringing this to my attention. Summary of the presentation : -- meconium samples of 105 infants admitted to a neonatal ICU within the first 72 hours of life, based on data from July 2024 to July 2025 -- studies done 2 decades ago have documented that meconium is not sterile , contrary to prior belief,  which suggests that the neonatal gut may well be exposed to maternal bacteria during pregnancy     -- the concern was that early microbial exposure could spread antibiotic resistance through maternal transmission, delivery mode, and very early hospital exposures -- the researchers screened meconium samples from these infants for 56 different resistance genes associated with commonly used antibiotics ...

  JAMA just published an article comparing the durability of anti-spike antibodies in infants born to women who either had natural Covid infection or vaccination (see  covid durabil of infant Ab after matern infec jama2022 , or doi:10.1097/AOG.0000000000004693)   Details : -- 77 vaccinated pregnant women and 12 with symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, both from weeks 20-32 gestation, evaluated in study done from July 21, 2021 to October 22, 2021 -- matched maternal and umbilical cord serum samples were collected at birth; infant capillary serum samples at two months after birth for infants of vaccinated mothers, and at six months for all -- six-month samples: collected a mean of 170 days after birth from 28 infants of vaccinated mothers, and 207 days after birth from 12 infants of infected mothers   Results : -- antibody titers, vaccinated versus natural infection:     -- mothers: 2.03 (standard deviation 0.47) optical d...

  A systematic review and meta-analysis found that neonates exposed to marijuana in utero may have increased likelihood of several adverse outcomes (see  marijuana adverse neonatal outcomes jama2022 in dropbox, or doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.45653).   Details: -- 16 studies with 59,138 patients were included . studies were all cohort studies: 14 in the US, one in Canada, and one in Jamaica -- study group sizes varied from 30 using marijuana versus 25 not, to 1245 using marijuana and 11,178 not -- the studies were reported as early as 1983, with six of them before the year 2000 -- primary outcomes: the rate of babies born at low birth weight (<2500g), small for gestational age (SGA, weight less <5 th  percentile), rate of preterm delivery (<37 weeks), birth weight, rate of neonatal intensive care unit admission, gestational age at the time of delivery, rate of five-minute Apgar score <7, Apgar score at 1 minute, infant head circumfe...