Neonatal Intensive Care News and Research

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New prediction model may make it easier to find which infants will develop NAS

A new Vanderbilt-designed prediction model may make it easier to determine which infants will go on to develop neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), a drug withdrawal syndrome in newborns that occurs after exposure to opioids during pregnancy.

12 Nov 2020

C-Path receives grant to collect real-world data for real-world evidence in neonatology

Arizona-based Critical Path Institute is pleased to announce it has been awarded a multi-year grant by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to advance standards and methodologies designed to generate real-world evidence from real-world data through a neonatal pilot project through the International Neonatal Consortium.

27 Oct 2020

Studies examine impact of COVID-19 on neonatal intensive care units

Two studies examining the impact of COVID-19 on neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) found the prevalence of COVID-19 in NICU infants is low, yet many hospitals at the start of the pandemic put in place strict parental visitation policies and scaled back NICU services such as lactation support and therapy.

22 Oct 2020

Researchers find distinct effects of adversity in the genomes of men than women born preterm

Researchers at McMaster University have found distinct effects of adversity early in life in the genomes of men compared to women who were born extremely preterm.

21 Oct 2020

Waterbirths as safe as traditional births, study shows

A new U.S. study of waterbirths found that hospital-based births involving water immersion had no higher risk of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) or special care nursery admission than comparable deliveries in the control group without water immersion.

14 Oct 2020

Female surgeons perform less complex procedures than their male counterparts, study shows

Female surgeons at a large academic medical center perform less complex surgical procedures than their male counterparts, according to a new study by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital.

9 Oct 2020

No rise in extremely preterm births during COVID-19 lockdown

Since the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries have implemented restrictions on mobility and social interactions, including lockdowns. This has been associated with a reduction in the number of extremely preterm (EP) babies, according to one Danish study. A recent paper published on the preprint server medRxiv in October 2020 reveals that this may not be the case.

7 Oct 2020

Expanded screening method can help detect life-threatening complications in preterm babies

Expanding routine newborn screening to include a metabolic vulnerability profile could lead to earlier detection of life-threatening complications in babies born preterm, according to a study by UC San Francisco researchers.

7 Oct 2020

Infants born to women with COVID-19 show few adverse outcomes

Infants born to women with COVID-19 showed few adverse outcomes, according to the first report in the country of infant outcomes through eight weeks of age.

23 Sep 2020

New document discusses how to prevent staphylococcus aureus infections in critically ill infants

Neonatal intensive care units (NICU) should balance prevention of Staphylococcus aureus infections in critically ill infants with the need for skin-to-skin contact with parents and siblings, according to a Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) white paper published in the journal Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.

15 Sep 2020

COVID-19 in pregnancy doubles odds of preterm delivery

The COVID-19 pandemic is continuing to cause huge social, economic, and health-related costs throughout the world, especially in Spain. Clinicians are still coming to terms with the range of health conditions wrought by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). A new study published on the preprint server medRxiv* in September 2020 shows that this infection results in fetal and maternal complications.

9 Sep 2020

Study: Antibiotics have prolonged effects on breast milk microbiota in mothers of preterm infants

A team led by researchers at the University of Toronto and The Hospital for Sick Children has found that mothers of preterm babies have highly individual breast milk microbiomes, and that even short courses of antibiotics have prolonged effects on the diversity and abundance of microbes in their milk.

3 Sep 2020

Choosing the best milk fortifiers can lead to improved health outcomes in premature babies

More than 380,000 babies are born prematurely in the United States each year, according to the March of Dimes.

13 Aug 2020

Researchers to test the effectiveness of intervention that addresses barriers to breastfeeding

A mother's own breast milk has infection-fighting factors and nutrients to help fuel growth and development in babies and may be easier to digest than formula.

4 Aug 2020

UVA earns international group's highest honor for quality heart and lung care

For its lifesaving care of patients with severely injured hearts and lungs, University of Virginia Medical Center has earned the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization's Platinum Level Center of Excellence Award, the international group's highest honor.

21 Jul 2020

Premature babies are exposed to high noise levels in the incubator, shows study

What do premature babies hear while lying in an incubator? That is the question addressed by an interdisciplinary team from the Medical University of Vienna, led by Vito Giordano (neuroscientist at the Division of Neonatology, Pediatric Intensive Care and Neuropediatrics at the Comprehensive Center for Pediatrics (CCP) of Medical University of Vienna) and by music physiologist Matthias Bertsch from the University of Music and the Performing Arts in the recent study "The Sound of Silence", published in the journal "Frontiers in Psychology".

20 Jul 2020

Quality improvement initiative at Children's National Hospital reduces antibiotic use

A quality improvement initiative in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Children's National Hospital led to a significant reduction in treatment with intravenous vancomycin, an antibiotic used for resistant gram positive infections, which is often associated with acute kidney injury.

1 Jul 2020

Remote continuous monitoring easily, effectively detects seizures in at-risk neonates

A team of researchers from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has demonstrated how to easily and effectively monitor for seizures in newborn infants, catching more instances than typical methods and improving the quality of care for infants in hospitals that lack the on-site resources to detect these seizures.

22 Jun 2020

Early respiratory distress syndrome caused by SARS-CoV-2 in a newborn

A recent case report from the researchers at the University of São Paulo, published in the journal CLINICS, shows how newborns can also be infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and develop serious symptoms, even though the most likely route of infection in such cases is still not completely clear.

14 Jun 2020

DNA sequencing and analysis of drug-resistant bacteria set up in the Philippines

Antibiotic resistance surveillance in the Philippines has moved into the genomic era, enabling better tracking of dangerous bacteria. Researchers at the Centre for Genomic Pathogen Surveillance (CGPS housed at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and The Big Data Institute, University of Oxford), and the Philippine Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, set up local DNA sequencing and analysis of drug resistant bacteria in the Philippines.

5 Jun 2020