Respiratory

Premature babies on a breathing machine sometimes need their breathing tube put back in within days of it being removed. Three new studies looked at which babies are most likely to need this, whether a 3-minute breathing test works as well as a 10-minute one, and what it means afterwards. Being…

European newborn experts have updated their guide to caring for premature babies whose lungs are not yet ready to breathe easily. The 2025 version favours gentler care: waiting until a baby breathes steadily before clamping the cord, using soft nasal support instead of a breathing tube where…

After surgery for a congenital diaphragmatic hernia, most babies need a breathing machine while their small lungs recover; in a small London study, nine such babies each spent four hours on the usual setting and four hours on NAVA, a setting that follows the baby's own breathing signal. All nine…

Many babies born very early have short pauses in their breathing that can make their oxygen level and heart rate dip. Researchers in Zurich, Switzerland, tested whether a pleasant vanilla or strawberry smell placed inside the small mask that helps these babies breathe could reduce those episodes…

Many very premature babies with long-term lung disease are given sildenafil, a medicine that relaxes the blood vessels in the lungs, even though it had not been tested in a large, carefully controlled trial in these babies. A careful study in 30 American hospitals has now found that, given by mouth…

Many babies born very early pause their breathing for a few seconds because the brain's breathing controls are not yet mature, and almost all of them are given caffeine to help. A large European survey shows that hospitals agree closely on caffeine but differ on what comes next, and a second paper…

Researchers in Guangzhou, China, tested whether giving very premature babies a single infusion of their own cord blood cells in the first day of life could help prevent a serious lung condition called bronchopulmonary dysplasia, or BPD. Five years later, the children who received the cells scored…

Some sick newborns are helped to breathe by a machine that delivers tiny, very fast breaths, called high-frequency oscillation. Three new studies looked at it: one found a modest, uncertain hint of fewer lung problems in premature babies, one found both machine types improved circulation in…

Babies born very early often need extra oxygen, and their care team chooses a target range for how much oxygen their blood should carry. A slightly higher range saves some lives, but a few more babies then need treatment for an eye disease of prematurity. Two 2026 studies, a US computer model and a…

Many babies born very early need help to breathe, and doctors try to give that help through soft prongs in the nose rather than a tube in the windpipe. Two large studies from China found that adding either rapid, gentle air vibrations or extra timed "breaths" to the usual steady nasal pressure…

Many babies born very early need a medicine called surfactant to help their lungs stay open. Researchers recently followed 147 of these babies for two years after they received that medicine in one of two different ways, to see whether the gentler method left them developing just as well — or even…

Premature babies born many weeks early often need extra oxygen to breathe, but too little or too much oxygen can each cause lasting harm. A major international study tested whether a computer that automatically fine-tunes a baby's oxygen level works better than a nurse adjusting it by hand. The…