TY - JOUR T1 - Current use of probiotics to prevent necrotising enterocolitis JF - Archives of Disease in Childhood - Fetal and Neonatal Edition JO - Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed SP - F228 LP - F228 DO - 10.1136/archdischild-2018-316199 VL - 104 IS - 2 AU - Samuel David Duffield AU - Paul Clarke Y1 - 2019/03/01 UR - http://fn.bmj.com/content/104/2/F228.abstract N2 - Each year in England ~230 babies born at <32 weeks’ gestation develop severe necrotising enterocolitis (NEC), with approximately half of them dying.1 Successive meta-analyses indicate that dual-strain probiotics—specifically the combination of Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus species—significantly reduce the incidence of NEC in very low birthweight infants (VLBWI; <1500 g) and halve mortality.2–4 A 2014 national UK survey,4 done prior to the publication of the Probiotics in Preterm babies Study (PiPS) trial,5 showed that only 12% (7 of 58) of the UK tertiary neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) were using probiotics, while more than half were awaiting the PiPS results. We aimed to determine if the prevalence of probiotic use has changed since the publication of the PiPS study in 2015.During June–July 2018, we telephone-surveyed all 58 UK tertiary-level NICUs. We asked a senior member of the medical team (registrar/advanced neonatal … ER -