Babies who spend time in newborn intensive care are much more likely than other babies to have permanent hearing loss. Two studies published in 2026 by a research team in Nottingham found that the same illnesses that damage hearing often affect the rest of the body too, and that children with…

When a baby is born too early, the lungs are often the last organs ready for the outside world, and helping that baby breathe without putting a tube down the windpipe is one of the central goals of newborn intensive care. A 2025 research review compared two gentle, tube-free breathing methods — a…

In many parts of the world, the antibiotics normally given first to a newborn with a suspected blood infection no longer kill the bacteria causing it. Researchers are testing two old, inexpensive antibiotics as replacements, and before running a large trial they had to answer a simpler question…

Some babies are born at a hospital that cannot provide the specialised care they turn out to need, and must be moved to a larger centre. Two research reviews published in 2026 looked at what that journey means for newborns. Together they show that the risks are real but largely preventable — and…

When a baby is born very early, one of the risks doctors watch for is bleeding inside the brain. In some of these babies, the fluid that normally cushions the brain begins to build up afterward, a condition called posthemorrhagic hydrocephalus. A 2026 review of the medical evidence, published by…

Many premature babies are born with a tiny blood vessel near the heart that is supposed to close on its own in the first days of life but sometimes stays open. When it does, doctors often use one of two familiar medicines — paracetamol (also called acetaminophen) or ibuprofen — to help it close. A…

Every newborn has a few drops of blood taken from the heel in the first days of life to check for rare but treatable conditions. In babies born early, one of those checks — for an underactive thyroid gland — often comes back normal even when the baby does have the condition. Two recent studies from…

When a baby is born extremely early, weighing less than a bag of sugar, the tiny stomach and intestines are not ready to handle milk, so nourishment has to be delivered straight into the bloodstream through a thin tube. For years, doctors believed that giving these babies plenty of protein right…

When a newborn develops jaundice — the yellow tint of the skin and eyes caused by a normal but temporary buildup of a substance called bilirubin — the usual treatment is phototherapy, a special blue light that helps the body clear it. A new study asked whether adding friendly gut bacteria, known as…

Many babies, especially those born by cesarean, breathe fast and work hard to breathe in their first hours of life because fluid that filled their lungs before birth has not yet fully cleared. This common and usually short-lived condition is called transient tachypnea of the newborn, and a new…

When one of the smallest premature babies develops a hole or dying tissue in the intestine, surgeons must choose quickly between two operations: a small bedside tube that drains the belly, or a full operation to open the abdomen and remove the damaged bowel. For years no one knew which choice gave…

Doctors have long hoped that giving newborns a friendly bacterium in the first days of life might protect them from dangerous infections. A carefully run study in Bangladesh recently tested one such product and found that, while the bacterium showed up in babies' stool for a few weeks, it faded…