ArticleJournal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association2025
Unplanned natural experiment: probiotics prevent necrotizing enterocolitis, a single center quality improvement report.
Article in Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Probiotics and Risk of Death, Necrotizing Enterocolitis, and Sepsis in Very Preterm Infants.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- In the modern era of human milk-based feeding, is the greater risk to extremely preterm infants feeding too early or feeding too little?Pediatric research · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo reduce necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in infants born <32 weeks or <1500 g by implementing probiotics protocol using quality improvement (QI) methodology. Probiotics were discontinued following the FDA warning.
methodsMultidisciplinary team developed an evidence-based protocol and identified key drivers for implementation. Protocol compliance was the process measure. NEC rate was the outcome measure tracked at baseline, during the QI initiative, and after the FDA warning. Death and sepsis were the balancing measures.
resultsProtocol compliance was 84.5%. The baseline NEC rate was 4.6%, decreased in the post-implementation group to 0.6%, then increased following the FDA warning to 3.8% (p = 0.045). Two special cause variations were observed in relation to implementing and discontinuing probiotics. None of the infants who received probiotics died or developed probiotics associated sepsis.
conclusionsQI initiative safely implemented probiotics and reduced NEC. The regulatory ban of probiotics was associated with a rebound in NEC rate.
Identifiers
41286424What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.