Pediatric Antimicrobial Stewardship focuses on optimising antibiotic use to improve clinical outcomes, reduce adverse effects, limit resistance, and protect long-term antimicrobial effectiveness. As resistance continues to rise globally, stewardship has become a critical component of pediatric healthcare systems. This session explores how stewardship principles apply to infants, children, and adolescents—populations with unique dosing needs, infection patterns, immune responses, and vulnerability to both under-treatment and overuse. Clinicians, pharmacists, infection-control teams, and public-health leaders often attend a specialised pediatric antimicrobial stewardship conference to stay updated on evolving guidelines, diagnostic tools, and programmatic strategies that support responsible prescribing.

A central theme is integrating stewardship into daily clinical practice across hospital wards, emergency departments, neonatal units, and outpatient clinics. Participants will examine how local resistance patterns, culture results, biomarkers, imaging findings, and clinical judgement come together to guide appropriate empiric therapy, narrow therapy when possible, and determine optimal duration. The session highlights the value of structured pediatric antimicrobial stewardship pathways that align treatment algorithms, documentation templates, decision-support tools, pharmacist reviews, and feedback loops. These pathways help clinicians avoid unnecessary antibiotics for viral infections, choose correct doses, and prevent prolonged therapy that increases toxicity or fosters resistance.

Case discussions will illustrate common stewardship challenges: distinguishing viral from bacterial illness, managing pneumonia without overusing broad-spectrum agents, interpreting urine cultures accurately, and addressing parental expectations for antibiotics. Participants will explore how to communicate effectively with families—offering reassurance, safety-netting advice, and clear explanations that build trust and reduce inappropriate demand for antibiotics.

The session also examines interdisciplinary collaboration. Stewardship thrives when pediatricians, hospitalists, intensivists, pharmacists, microbiologists, nurses, and public-health teams work together to design protocols, audit prescribing behaviour, and support continuous learning. Discussions will highlight the role of rapid diagnostics, point-of-care tests, and molecular assays in reducing uncertainty and enabling more precise decisions.

Global perspectives will address gaps in antibiotic access, laboratory capacity, sanitation, and vaccination—all of which influence stewardship outcomes. Participants will explore strategies for implementing stewardship in low-resource settings, including simplified guidelines, essential-antibiotic lists, and community education campaigns. Ethical considerations—balancing individual patient needs with population-level resistance concerns—are woven throughout the session.

By the end, attendees will feel confident applying stewardship principles to real-world scenarios and advocating for safer, more effective antibiotic use for children everywhere.