How Long Should We Monitor a Child for Bacterial Meningitis?

A new group of infants that the AAP lines talk about, age 22 to 28 day old infants. The guidelines have said if at 24 to 36 hours, so less than the classic 48 hour window, if the cultures are negative and the child is clinically improving you can arrange close follow up at home. This was a big change for the guideline. It really upped that sort of 28 days, the first four weeks of life. There's obviously still a risk of, you know, an attractive infection. But the risk is lower with some of the newer risk stratification algorithms. You should do blood testing, but don't automatically have to do a lumbar puncture or anything like that