Can This Approach Help? Inside the Latest Research on Blood Pressure Targets in Critically Ill

“Do I need to treat this blood pressure?” is one of the most common questions to pass through the minds of acute care pediatricians during a typical day in the hospital. Blood pressure generally increases with somatic growth, reflecting developmental changes in stroke volume, vascular structure and function, and neurohumoral regulation. As a result of interindividual variation across the developmental stages of childhood, there is a wide range of acceptable blood pressure values. There is also long-standing ambiguity about what should be considered the limits of acceptable blood pressure, particularly among hospitalized children. Age-based reference values offer a starting point, although the threshold used to identify an unusually low blood pressure may differ from the pressure needed to maintain adequate organ perfusion. This uncertainty can create substantial tension when a clinician Indexed from JAMA Network (2026-10-27) by DotMD's 2-hour clinical surveillance pipeline.