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…

For most babies, RSV, a very common virus, causes a cough and a few difficult days of breathing, but in some parts of the world it still takes babies' lives. A 25-year study from a hospital on the coast of Kenya found that babies who were underweight or born with a heart condition were most at…

Doctors have long wondered whether the bacteria that settle in a premature baby's gut could affect how the baby's brain develops. In a Dutch trial of 99 babies born before 30 weeks, a daily supplement of a friendly bacterium, prebiotic fibres and glutamine quickly helped healthy bacteria take hold…

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…

A large UK study and a Hong Kong study tested whether support from trained volunteer peer supporters helps first-time mothers keep breastfeeding. In the UK, regular contact from pregnancy to eight weeks after birth did not change how many babies were getting breast milk. In Hong Kong, two video…

Before birth, a baby's blood carries mostly fetal haemoglobin, a form of the oxygen-carrying protein that holds on to oxygen tightly. New research shows that even very premature babies are born with mostly fetal haemoglobin, that blood transfusions from adult donors replace it faster, and that…

Scientists are exploring whether the heel-prick blood test that nearly every newborn already has could also look for rare inherited gene changes that raise a child's chance of cancer. A Michigan study suggests that about 1 baby in 27,000 carries such a change and goes on to develop cancer in early…

In a rare pregnancy condition, a mother's antibodies destroy her unborn baby's red blood cells, sometimes before 24 weeks. A 2026 study of 15 such pregnancies found that, even with expert care, 13 babies needed blood transfusions in the womb and all 14 newborns needed light treatment for jaundice…

Boys born early are slightly more likely than girls to develop cerebral palsy, a lifelong condition affecting movement, and in babies born very early they are a little more likely to have kidney strain in the first weeks of life and higher blood pressure readings as toddlers. Two 2026 studies show…

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…

When a baby in intensive care is seriously ill and doctors suspect the cause lies in the baby's genes, reading the baby's whole genetic code can now give an answer in days rather than weeks. Three new studies from Dubai, South Korea and Greece found a genetic cause in roughly a quarter to a half of…

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…