Checklist to identify severe illness in infants

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Medical experts have compiled a checklist of seven signs that mothers and healthcare workers can use to identify severe illnesses in newborn infants requiring urgent treatment in hospital.

Around 4 million babies around the world die each year before they are a month old, and three-quarters of them die in the first week of life -- mainly from bacterial infections, birth complications and prematurity.

In an article published in the Lancet, the researchers said the list can help identify serious illnesses in infants under two months and bridge a gap in a previous checklist that did not cover infants in their first week of life.

"Anyone looking after children, mothers, should know that if children are not feeding well, it is a sign of serious illness, they should take it to care," said Martin Weber of the World Health Organisation in Jakarta.

"It seems very simple, but these are messages we need to promote more widely. If the baby is not moving spontaneously and only doing so when you touch it, that should alert you that the baby has problems," Weber told Reuters in a phone interview.

The seven clinical signs are:

- history of difficult feeding

- history of convulsions

- movement only when stimulated