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I wish to draw attention
to a widely prevalent but inappropriate practice of injecting infants in
the gluteal region. I interviewed parents/attendants of 100 consecutive
infants regarding the history of any previous intramuscular injections
including vaccines and the site of giving the injections. Surprisingly,
most of them recalled that their child had been injected in the gluteal
region. Out of 88 infants who had received injections for immunization,
62 (70.5%) had received them in the gluteal region. Out of 39 infants
who had been injected for some other purpose, all had received it in the
gluteal region. The preferred site of any intramuscular injection in
infants is the anterolateral aspect of thigh(1-3) because there are
chances of serious damage to the sciatic nerve while injecting in the
gluteal region. Moreover, injecting in the gluteal region might also
result in reduced efficacy of many vaccines. But this practice is widely
prevalent in many places, especially in small towns and rural areas.
Even many qualified medical professionals seem to be ignorant of the
fact that intramuscular injections should be put in a muscle and not in
a pad of fat which they are likely to do while injecting in the gluteal
region in an infant. Medical, paramedical personnel and the community at
large need to be educated about the proper site of injections.
Madhumita Nandi
C/o. Abhijit Banik,
Works Manager,
Ordnance Clothing Factory,
Shahjahanpur 242 001, UP,
India
E-mail:[email protected]
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1. John TJ,
Parthasarathy A, Bhave S. IAP Guidebook on Immunization. Indian
Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Immunization, IAP 1996,
pp-23-24, 30-31, 50-57.
2. John TJ.
Principles and practice of Immunization. In: IAP Textbook of
Pediatrics, 1st edn. Eds. Parthasarathy A, Menon PSN, Nair MKC, New
Delhi, Jaypee Brothers, 1999; p 166.
3. Bart KJ. Immunization Practices. In:
Nelson Texbook of Pediatrics, 15th edn. Eds. Behrman RE, Kliegman RM,
Arvin AM, Bangalore, Prism Books Pvt Ltd., 1996; p 1015.
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