Bacterial Colonization in the Airways and Intestines of Twin and Singleton Preterm Neonates: A Single-Center Study

Table 1

Sample characteristics of 10 pairs of twins and 20 singleton newborns.

	A (n = 20)	B (n = 20)	Statistics
Sex (male/female)	6/14	7/13	—	0.736^a
Birth method (vaginal delivery/cesarean section)	2/18	4/16	—	0.661^a
Gestational week	34.30 ± 0.80	33.95 ± 1.00	1.222	0.229^b
Apgar score (1 min)	9.05 ± 0.69	9.00 ± 0.80	0.213	0.833^b
Weight (kg)	2.17 ± 0.19	2.20 ± 0.43	−0.304	0.763^b
Length (cm)	43.85 ± 1.63	44.30 ± 2.13	−0.750	0.458^b
Head circumference (cm)	31.43 ± 1.20	31.38 ± 1.87	0.091	0.928^b
Number of breaths (times/min)	46.90 ± 5.75	48.70 ± 6.66	−0.915	0.366^b
Blood oxygen saturation (%)	96.50 ± 1.00	95.10 ± 2.31	2.483	0.200^b
White blood cells (10^9/L)	10.15 ± 2.55	11.97 ± 4.67	−1.525	0.136^b
Absolute neutrophil count (10^9/L)	5.17 ± 2.23	6.93 ± 5.05	−1.424	0.163^b
Age of the father (years)	32.80 ± 2.63	29.25 ± 4.73	2.932	0.060^b
Age of the mother (years)	30.40 ± 3.32	28.35 ± 4.39	1.666	0.104^b
Number of pregnancies (times)	2.00 ± 1.03	1.90 ± 0.97	0.317	0.753^b
Number of births (times)	1.80 ± 0.70	1.50 ± 0.51	1.552	0.129^b

Significant differences in continuous and categorical variables were examined using student’ t-test and chi-squared test, respectively (). ^aValues shown for categorical variables are the number. ^bValues shown for continuous variables are the mean ± SD.