Transitional diarrhoea in newborn infants.

A self-limited acute fluid diarrhoea was seen in 80 of 3550 (2.2%) live-born infants not kept in a nursery in this hospital. Rotavirus and enteropathogenic serotypes of E. coli were detected with equal frequency with and without diarrhoea. It is suggested that this self-limited episode of diarrhoea occurring soon after birth is not necessarily due to rotavirus infection but could also be due to failure of adaptation to enteral feeding and microbial colonization during this transitional period.