High blood pressure in pregnancy, including pre-eclampsia, is a common reason babies are born very early. New research suggests these babies are more likely to grow slowly in hospital alongside a second problem such as liver strain, an underactive thyroid or lung disease, and that children exposed…

When a baby's brain is short of oxygen around birth, doctors have only a few hours to judge how serious the injury is and whether cooling treatment will help. A study of 112 newborns in the United Kingdom and Italy found that a tiny blood sample taken in the first hours of life showed different…

Very premature babies lose heat fast after birth, so international experts suggest wrapping them in clear plastic in the first minutes of life. A follow-up of a large international trial found no clear difference in survival or development at about two years between wrapped and unwrapped babies…

Babies born very early need frequent blood tests, and because they have so little blood to begin with, the small amounts taken for testing add up quickly. A large study across 22 European countries found that hospitals differ widely in how much blood their laboratory machines need, and two smaller…

Babies born very early miss months of the special fats that the placenta normally delivers to build the brain and eyes. New research suggests that giving two of these fats together, rather than one on its own, may be gentler on the lungs and may help protect the eyes and the brain's wiring. The…

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…

Some of the germs that cause serious infections in newborn babies no longer respond to common antibiotics. Three studies published in 2026 suggest that, in many hospitals, these resistant germs pass from baby to baby within the newborn unit, and that the approaches most strongly linked with saving…

Some parents have worried that circumcising a baby boy might raise his chance of autism. A large US study of 2,771 boys has now looked carefully at this question and found no link: once family differences were taken into account, boys circumcised in hospital as newborns were no more likely to be…

Many very premature babies need a blood transfusion in their first weeks, and doctors now know it is safe to wait until a baby's blood count drops a little lower before giving one. New research shows that US hospitals have been following that advice more closely, hints that the way donated blood is…

Doctors usually decide whether a newborn has a serious infection by growing germs from a blood sample, but this test can miss infections and says little about how sick a baby is. Three new studies from Germany, the United States and Denmark suggest that testing the umbilical cord can reveal hidden…

Babies in intensive care sometimes develop blood clots in their veins, most often around the thin tubes doctors use to give nutrition and medicines. New research shows these clots are more common in babies with heart problems or infections, but also that many clots shrink or disappear within a few…

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…