by Claudia Boyd-Barrett posted in Parenting

Kids are getting fewer ear infections today than they were about 3 decades ago, largely thanks to the pneumococcal vaccine which protects against a common bacteria, a study suggests.
The study findings, and an accompanying editorial, emphasize the importance of adhering to the recommended immunization schedule for your child, which includes the pneumococcal vaccine.
Research in the 1980?s found that about 80 percent of children got at least one ear infection by age 3. Today, according to the most recent study published in the journal Pediatrics, the number has dropped to just 60 percent of children.
Kids these days are also less likely to suffer multiple ear infections by age 3 than in the past, the study found. The researchers tracked more than 600 kids who attended a medical clinic in Rochester, New York, between 2006 and 2016. As part of the study and treatment, the researchers performed a procedure that drains fluid from the ears of children with an infection. That allowed them to analyze the type of bacteria causing the infection.

During the study, the researchers detected a drop in the number of ear infections caused by bacteria called streptococcus pneumonia. They attributed the decrease largely to the introduction of the pneumococcal vaccine in 2000, and an updated version introduced in 2010, which protects against this type of bacteria. Stricter criteria for diagnosing ear infections may also have contributed to the ...