The hospital mortality rate for severe sepsis is 2% in previously healthy children and 8% in chronically ill children in the United States (497). Definitions of sepsis, severe sepsis, septic shock, and multiple organ dysfunction/failure syndromes are similar to adult definitions but depend on age-specific heart rate, respiratory rate, and white blood cell count cutoff values (500, 501). This document provides recommendations only for term newborns and children in the industrialized resource-rich setting with full access to mechanical ventilation ICUs.