Chorioamnionitis and Management of Asymptomatic Infants who are 35 Weeks and Older Without Empiric Antibiotics

Management of asymptomatic infants who are 35 weeks and older gestation born to mothers with chorioamnionitis remains controversial, with many clinicians considering the need for changes to the current guidelines. The study objective was to evaluate the outcomes of asymptomatic chorioamnionitis-exposed neonates without the use of immediate empirical antibiotics.

A Bereaved Father and His Team of Microsoft Data Scientists Combat Infant Deaths

Microsoft is partnering with a research team at Seattle Children's Hospital, led by neuroscientist Nino Ramirez. With access to a lab where they can do things like test different factors on slice of mouse-brain tissue, Ramirez's team is examining which avenues hold up when researched further Promising work will be published in medical and data science journals with a view to influencing clinical practice.

"Plastic bag" Womb Could Help Keep Premature Babies Alive

An artificial womb resembling a plastic bag has been used to keep premature lambs alive for four weeks outside of their own mothers' wombs and could one day be applied to premature babies.

New Technology Detects Critical Feeding Problems in Preemies

Many babies born prematurely have trouble eating because of swallowing difficulties, making new moms anxious during bottle feeding or breastfeeding. To better diagnose feeding issues, clinicians in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas developed an innovative new way to assess swallowing in the hospital's tiniest patients, giving new moms more confidence to feed their newborns safely.

Portable MRI scanner for neonatal babies with brain damage in NICU

Most babies in a NICU are seriously ill, having had very premature or traumatic births. Around 70 percent are at risk of brain damage. Predicting on how they will fare is notoriously hard, and despite the best available specialist care, often it's still a matter of waiting to see whether they will survive and with what, if any, impairments. And although an adult patient would go for an MRI scan as soon as brain damage was on the cards, many of these babies don't ever get to have that basic test.

Just How Safe is Feeding While on CPAP

This is becoming "all the rage" as they say. I first heard about the strategy of feeding while on CPAP from colleagues in Calgary. They had created the SINC (Safe Individualized Feeding Competence) program to provide an approach to safely introducing feeding to those who were still requiring CPAP.

Sick Infants "at risk" from "alarming" Staff Shortage in Scotland's Neonatal Units, Charity Warns

Its findings, based on a survey conducted in June 2016, highlights a service "under significant strain" with an "alarming" lack of high-skilled doctors, including consultant neonatologists and pediatricians, in four of the country's eight Level Three units which provide intensive care to the most critically ill newborns.

For more neonatology news, follow NICUniversity.org on Twitter!

Get the latest in NICU news by following @NICUniversity on twitter! We post updates about our programs and videos as well as retweet relevant articles for neonatal professionals.

You can also follow NICUniversity.org on Facebook!

Get the conversation started online today--we would love to hear your feedback!

Buprenorphine Treatment for Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome

Babies who were exposed to opioids in utero are at risk for neonatal abstinence syndrome. New research findings are summarized in a short video.