Underweight children (BMI ≤5%) have an increased risk of hospitalization from the emergency department, even when adjusted for age and sex. In particular, hospitalization among underweight patients was increased for those patients with respiratory infections and fractures. No difference was seen between admission rates of overweight (BMI ≥85%) or obese (BMI ≥95%) patients from those of normal-weight patients. This warrants the need to counsel patients and their families on the dangers not only of obesity, but also of being underweight. Emphasis should be placed on healthy lifestyles that include well-balanced meals and exercise.

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The objective of this study was to compare contamination rates in urine samples obtained by transurethral catheterization and cleancatch methods in preschool children aged 2 to 5 years.Methods: A retrospective, chart review was performed on patients evaluated in our emergency department over a 6-month period who had a urine culture obtained by either transurethral catheterization or clean-catch methods. The charts were reviewed for urine bacterial colony counts and divided into positive, negative, or contaminated cohorts. Demographic data were collected as well.Results: Four hundred sixty patients met inclusion for this study. Of these patients, there were 120 samples collected by catheter (26.1%) and 340 samples collected by clean-catch method (73.9%).Female patients comprised 73% of the eligible samples (n = 336), and 27% were male (n = 124). Contamination rates significantly varied by collection method ( P < 0.0001), with only 9 contaminated catheter samples (7.5%) and 125 contaminated clean-catch samples (36.76%). Contaminated samples were found in 122 of 336 female urine samples (36.3%), and 12 of 124 male urine samples (9.7%). There were no associations found between contamination rates and age within either sex.Conclusions: Our study demonstrated a higher urine culture contamination rate in preschool age children in the clean-catch method group compared with the transurethral catheterization group. This finding was particularly strong within the female subset, which could partially be accounted for by the small male sample size.