Monitoring the heart rate of premature and sick babies could prevent them from dying of undetected bacterial infections, New Scientist magazine said on Wednesday.

Potentially fatal infections, or sepsis, can be missed by doctors. Underweight babies are most susceptible to them because their immune systems are immature.

But Pamela Griffin and Randall Moorman, doctors at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, found that heart rates could be a key to diagnosing the problem.

They studied 89 babies at a high risk of sepsis and discovered that a very steady heart rate between 12 and 24 hours before symptoms developed could indicate sepsis.

"Griffin suspects that the heartbeat analysis picks up cases of sepsis that blood tests could miss. Reliable, early detection could alert doctors to sick babies and let them start antibiotics earlier," the magazine said.

(From ChinaDaily)