{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,28]],"date-time":"2026-09-28T12:03:02Z","timestamp":1790596982433,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":45,"publisher":"American Medical Association (AMA)","issue":"7","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["JAMA Netw Open"],"abstract":"Importance<\/jats:title>Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder in childhood. It remains unclear whether early-onset sepsis is associated with epilepsy and to what extent early-onset meningitis may contribute to its development.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>Objective<\/jats:title>To study the association between early-onset neonatal infection and childhood epilepsy.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>Design, Setting, and Participants<\/jats:title>Nationwide, population-based, register-based cohort study of all Danish live-born singletons with at least 35 completed gestational weeks at birth without major congenital anomalies in Denmark between 1997 and 2013 with follow-up until 2021 or age 18 years, whichever came first. Data were analyzed from February 2024 to January 2025.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>Exposures<\/jats:title>Early-onset infection was defined as an invasive bacterial infection during the first week of life. Diagnosed infection was defined by diagnostic codes of sepsis or meningitis, while culture-positive infection only included those with bacterial pathogens cultured from blood or cerebrospinal fluid.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>Main outcomes and measures<\/jats:title>Epilepsy was defined as a hospital diagnosis or at least 2 redeemed prescriptions of antiepileptic medication. The association between diagnosed sepsis and epilepsy was investigated with multivariable Cox regression to estimate adjusted hazard ratios (HR) with 95% CIs. Associations for the remaining definitions of infection were investigated using person-time incidence rate ratios (IRR).<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>Results<\/jats:title>Among 981\u202f869 children, the median (IQR) gestational age was 40 (39-41) weeks, 501\u202f615 (51%) were male, 8154 (0.8%) were diagnosed with sepsis, and 152 (&amp;lt;0.1%) were diagnosed with meningitis. Of these, 257 children had culture-positive sepsis and 32 had culture-positive meningitis. The incidence rate of epilepsy was 1.6 per 1000 person-years for children with diagnosed sepsis compared with 0.9 per 1000 person-years for children without an infection, resulting in an adjusted HR of 1.85 (95% CI, 1.60-2.13). Culture-positive sepsis was also associated with an increased risk of epilepsy (IRR, 2.70; 95% CI, 1.08-5.56), while the highest risks were observed in children with meningitis both diagnosed (IRR, 9.85; 95% CI, 5.52-16.27) and verified by culture (IRR, 16.04; 95% CI, 5.21-37.46).<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>Conclusions and relevance<\/jats:title>In this nationwide cohort study, early-onset neonatal sepsis was associated with an approximately 2-fold increased risk of childhood epilepsy. As expected, early-onset meningitis was associated with an even higher risk of epilepsy with an approximately 10-fold increase.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1001\/jamanetworkopen.2025.19090","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,7]],"date-time":"2025-07-07T15:00:51Z","timestamp":1751900451000},"page":"e2519090","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":9,"title":["Early-Onset Neonatal Infection and Epilepsy in Children"],"prefix":"10.1001","volume":"8","author":[{"given":"Mads","family":"Andersen","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark"},{"name":"Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Niels Bjerreg\u00e5rd","family":"Matthiesen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark"},{"name":"Department of 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