Newborn babies can pick up harmful germs from their mother's birth canal during labour and from the hospital around them, and in poorer countries these germs cause many serious infections. A study in Malawi tested whether gently cleaning mothers in labour, and newborn babies, with antiseptic washes…

Many newborns turn a little yellow in their first week, and this often happens after the family has gone home. Two studies published in 2026 tested a small light meter held against the skin during home visits: in the Netherlands, midwives using it found more babies who needed treatment than by…

Two large studies from Canada and Sweden followed over a million children to see whether birth with a vacuum cup or forceps affects later development. Babies delivered by vacuum from higher in the birth canal had more bleeding and seizures as newborns, though these were rare. Over the next 13 to 14…

Many newborns have low blood sugar in their first hours of life, and when a first feed does not bring it up, some babies need a drip. A study of 400 babies in two Bangkok hospitals tested whether a small amount of concentrated sugar solution placed inside the cheek could help: it raised blood sugar…

Giving families money during pregnancy and a baby's first year, with no strings attached, may help in ways that can be measured. In Flint, Michigan, a program that paid every expectant mother was followed by better use of prenatal care and fewer child-protection investigations involving babies. In…

Omega-3 supplements taken in pregnancy modestly lower the chance of a baby arriving too early, but the effect has been inconsistent: some studies found a clear benefit and others none. Researchers have now re-examined a completed American trial of two DHA doses and found that a common variation in…

Cooling treatment is a well-proven way to protect the brains of newborns harmed by a lack of oxygen around birth, and many countries write official rules on how to use it. A panel of European experts graded these rulebooks from 11 countries and found that most had been put together with weak…

A large US study scanned the brains of 259 full-term newborns and found that babies exposed to opioids before birth had, on average, slightly shallower brain folds and a slightly smaller brain surface than babies who were not exposed. The differences were small, the study cannot show that opioids…

Babies in neonatal intensive care wear sticky sensors and wires so that nurses can track their breathing around the clock, but those sensors can mark delicate skin and get in the way of cuddles. New research shows that a camera placed outside the incubator can count a premature baby's breaths to…

Two New York City hospitals began testing every newborn in their nurseries for G6PD deficiency, a common inherited condition that can make jaundice more severe. Babies who had it needed extra jaundice care more often, and choosing whom to test by family background would have missed many of them…

Many parents of babies born early wonder whether their child will struggle at school. A large Australian study that compared brothers and sisters born at different stages of pregnancy found that children born from 32 weeks onward did almost as well in national reading and maths tests as their…

Two large studies published in 2026 estimate that about 2.3 million babies died in their first four weeks of life in 2024, almost half of all deaths among children under five worldwide. The leading causes were complications of being born too early, problems around the time of birth, and serious…