Babies born more than three months early often need help breathing, and many go on to develop a chronic lung condition called bronchopulmonary dysplasia, or BPD. Researchers hoped that adding a small dose of a common anti-inflammatory steroid, budesonide, to the lung medicine these babies already…

Before a baby is born, a small blood vessel called the ductus arteriosus lets blood skip past the lungs, which are not yet being used. Think of it as a temporary detour: in the womb the baby gets oxygen from the mother through the placenta rather than from breathing, so there is no reason to send…

Babies born very early — many weeks before their due date — often have lungs that are not finished growing. To survive, the smallest of these babies may need a breathing machine, called a ventilator, that pushes air into their lungs through a tube. The machine is lifesaving, but over days and weeks…

If your baby was born premature and is in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), you have almost certainly seen the nurses weigh your baby every morning. That weight gets plotted on a chart — sometimes on paper, sometimes on a screen — that shows whether your baby is growing as expected.

Sometimes a baby is deprived of oxygen and blood flow around the time of birth — because of a problem with the placenta, the umbilical cord, or labor itself. When that happens, the brain can be injured in the hours and days that follow, a condition doctors call hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, or…

When a baby is born extremely early — before 28 weeks of pregnancy, more than three months ahead of the due date — the first few days of life are the most fragile. Even with the best modern care, about one in five of these babies does not survive, and some of those who do grow up with lasting…

When a baby is born extremely early — between 23 and 28 weeks of pregnancy, roughly four months ahead of schedule — the first few minutes of life are critical. The lungs are barely ready to breathe air, and the care team often needs to help the baby get oxygen right away. But how much oxygen to…

If you have spent time beside an incubator in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), you may have heard the word transfusion more than once. Babies born very early and very small — under about two pounds, or 1,000 grams — almost always become anemic, meaning they run low on red blood cells. Red…

A large international study followed premature babies who had low platelet counts and found that giving platelet transfusions more freely did not help them and actually caused harm that lasted into early childhood. Babies given transfusions at a more generous threshold were more likely to have died or to have a developmental problem by age two than babies given them only when their counts fell much lower. The clear lesson: for these infants, a more cautious, "wait-and-watch" approach is safer.