Two recent studies suggest that doctors may be able to tell by about three months of age which babies who had a difficult start are at high risk of cerebral palsy, even where brain scans are not available. One study tested which assessments work best, and the other showed that a busy hospital…

Intraventricular hemorrhage, or IVH, is bleeding inside the brain's fluid-filled spaces that can happen in babies born very early. Three new studies looked at what makes it more likely, whether doctors can predict it, and how hospitals might prevent it. They suggest that steroids before birth and…

Hospital neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) are loud places, and that noise can be hard on a baby whose hearing and brain are still developing. But new research also suggests that babies born early need to hear human voices, especially their parents', and that a quiet room is not automatically a…

Some babies are short of oxygen around the time of birth, and this can injure the brain. Cooling the baby for three days is the standard treatment, and doctors hoped that adding a medicine called erythropoietin would help even more babies. A trial of 313 babies in Australia, New Zealand and…

A stroke can happen to a baby around the time of birth, though it is rare and often hard to spot. A new 2026 Chinese guideline sets out how doctors should find and treat the most common type, and a 2025 study of 124 babies in one Wuhan hospital compares strokes caused by blocked and by bleeding…

A large German study that followed people from birth to age 34 found that most adults who were born very early or very small are doing well in life, with good relationships and financial independence. About one in five of the very-early-born group, however, faced lasting money and social…

When a baby is born very early, doctors typically wait about one to two weeks before doing the first ultrasound of the brain, because that is when bleeding and other injuries are believed to become fully visible. A new study of 365 premature babies found that scanning the brain on the very first…

When a baby is born after a difficult delivery and doctors diagnose a brain injury called hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, parents are almost always asked to wait for answers about their child's future. New research suggests that a simple blood test, taken in the first two days of life, might one…

A new study looked at whether keeping extremely premature babies on an all-human-milk diet — their own mother's milk or donor milk, with no cow's-milk-based formula or booster — for a few extra weeks helps their brains grow and mature. The researchers compared brain scans and movement assessments…

Some babies are born unable to move one arm properly, because the nerves running from the neck into the shoulder were stretched during birth. Most recover on their own within a few months, but a substantial minority do not, and those children may need scans, nerve surgery and years of therapy. Four…

When a very premature baby bleeds into the fluid-filled spaces inside the brain, those spaces can swell — a condition doctors call post-haemorrhagic ventricular dilatation. Four studies published in 2025 and 2026 show that this swelling leaves the brain short of oxygen, that hospitals disagree…

A vein of Galen malformation is a rare tangle of blood vessels deep inside a baby's brain that lets blood rush straight from the arteries into one large vein, forcing the heart to work far harder than it should. Four studies published in 2025 and 2026 show that doctors can now predict before birth…