Preadmission Diet and Zip Code Influences the Pediatric Critical Care Clinical Course for Infants with Severe Respiratory Illness (N = 187)

We examined preadmission diet and zip code in infants with severe respiratory illness in the pediatric critical care unit. Patients aged 0 to 5 months admitted to the Helen DeVos Children's Hospital from January 2011 to May 2017 ( N  = 187), as exclusively formula, exclusively breastfed or mixed diet were included. Formula-fed infants ( n  = 88; 47%) clustered to zip codes with lower median incomes (<0.005), used public insurance as their payer type ( p  < 0.005), and were prescribed more ranitidine ( p  < 0.05) on admission.