BACKGROUND: Hospitalized children experience mortality as a result of infections. Since the COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020, China's strict prevention measures have curbed pathogen transmission, altering infection-related epidemiology. The Futang Research Center of Pediatric Development has collected the face sheet of discharge medical records (FSMRs) data from 27 tertiary children's hospitals since January 2016, which facilitate us to investigate this issue. Moreover, this study focuses on hospitalized children aged 18 years old or younger. METHODS: This study analyzed data from the FSMRs of children who died from infections at 27 tertiary children's hospitals across China between January 2016 and December 2021. Of these hospitals, 21 are located in provincial capitals. The data included gender, age, region, residence, year of admission, infections-associated causes of death, pathogens, length of stay, and expense. RESULTS: A total of 1130 hospitalized children died from infections, accounting for 18.8 % of all deaths and 0.015 % of the total hospitalizations in the database during the period. Boys had a higher fatality than girls across different regions, age groups, years. Among all age groups, 0-28 days and 29 days-1 year group (≤365 days) had a higher number and proportion of deaths than other age groups. In terms of year of admission, the COVID-19 period (2020-2021) had a lower number of infections related death cases than pre-COVID-19 period. Further analysis of infection-related causes indicated that sepsis was the most common cause of death, followed by pneumonia, central nervous system infection, shock, enteritis, and myocarditis. The pathogens (bacterium, virus, fungus) were identified in 30.6 % of children. CONCLUSIONS: Infections are the significant cause of death among hospitalized children in China.