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50 articles
In a large British trial, 799 very premature babies were given either the antibiotic azithromycin or a dummy medicine for ten days. Two follow-up studies then looked for antibiotic-resistant bacteria in their airways and stool. The antibiotic did not prevent the lung disease it was meant to…
A few babies catch an infection from their mother before or around birth, most often a common virus called cytomegalovirus. A Swedish study of everyone born in the country over 35 years found that these rare infections, when diagnosed by doctors, were linked to higher chances of intellectual…
Group B Strep is a common bacterium that can cause rare but serious infections in young babies. Two large studies from the Netherlands and Denmark found that these infections have become more common in Dutch babies despite antibiotics given during labour, that babies born very early tend to fall…
Many parents-to-be with allergies in the family wonder whether eating more egg and peanut while pregnant and breastfeeding could protect their baby. A large Australian study of 2,137 pregnant women found that babies whose mothers ate lots of these foods were about as likely to have egg or peanut…
When a very premature baby develops a blood infection, doctors around the world agree that antibiotics are needed, but they do not agree on how long to give them. A survey of 382 neonatal intensive care units in 12 neonatal networks found that the usual course ranged from under a week to three…
When a baby in neonatal intensive care develops an infection, antibiotics can be life-saving, but giving them for longer than needed can also cause harm. A large French study of 504 babies found that checking a blood marker called procalcitonin every two days helped doctors stop antibiotics about…
Babies in their first two months can become seriously ill from infection very quickly, and in many parts of the world health workers must decide who needs hospital care by looking at the baby rather than by running laboratory tests. A large 2026 review of 52 studies and more than 140,000 babies…
Babies cannot have their own flu vaccine until they are 6 months old, so the protection their mother passes on during pregnancy is the main shield they have. Three large studies from Singapore and Australia, together covering hundreds of thousands of babies, found that a flu vaccine in pregnancy…
Many healthy people carry a germ called staph on their skin or in their nose, but in babies born very early it can sometimes cause a serious blood infection. Three recent studies followed this germ from a baby first picking it up, to its spread between babies in a neonatal unit, to what might stop…
Some of the germs that cause serious infections in newborn babies no longer respond to common antibiotics. Three studies published in 2026 suggest that, in many hospitals, these resistant germs pass from baby to baby within the newborn unit, and that the approaches most strongly linked with saving…
Doctors usually decide whether a newborn has a serious infection by growing germs from a blood sample, but this test can miss infections and says little about how sick a baby is. Three new studies from Germany, the United States and Denmark suggest that testing the umbilical cord can reveal hidden…
Babies can now be protected from RSV, a common virus that can make very young babies seriously ill, in two ways: a vaccine given to the mother during pregnancy, or a protective antibody injection given to the baby. Three studies from 2026, from the United States, Australia and Europe, show that…