A 6wk old with fever does require a "sepsis" workup as standard procedure--this includes blood counts, blood culture, urine culture, often spinal tap. If the blood counts look the least little bit off, the baby either is hospitalized for 2 days until the cultures are back or given a shot of (usually) Rocephin, a broad-spectrum antibiotic, and followed up the next day by a physician. It's often hard to tell in that age range whether the infant has a viral infection or is brewing a serious bacterial infection, so we tend to overdo it intentionally in order to treat the 1/10 of babies who actually will have something really serious. Even if there's some yeast overgrowth as a result of the treatment, it's worth the risk in order to prevent a potentially very serious infection from developing. Linda L. Shaw MD FAAP *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html