Neonatal Medicine News

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected many aspects of life in the United States and impacted the transmission of numerous infectious diseases.

For 6 consecutive years, the CDC’s annual surveillance report for STDs has come with a dire warning: After years of decline, cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis have steadily increased.

Boston Children’s Hospital was named Tuesday as the best children’s hospital in the United States for the eighth consecutive year by U.S. News & World Report, which expanded its annual list this year to include state and regional rankings.

Both messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccines available in the United States trigger immune responses in pregnant and nonpregnant women, including those who are lactating, researchers reported in JAMA.

Prenatal supplementation was associated with microbial diversity in breast milk, according to findings presented at the American Society of Nutrition’s annual meeting.

“Kangaroo mother care,” the practice of a caregiver participating in skin-to-skin contact with a newborn, was associated with a reduced risk for mortality in low-birth-weight infants at 28 days, a randomized controlled trial showed.

Researchers observed no difference in functional neurodevelopment or epilepsy among children aged 24 months regardless of whether antiseizure medication was discontinued or maintained in infants at discharge once seizures ceased.

In terms of short-term weight gain, preterm formula powder fortifiers were noninferior to human milk fortifiers in a study of around 120 preterm very-low-birth-weight neonates in India, researchers reported in JAMA Pediatrics showed.

The fetal gut microbiome of healthy term infants developed during and after birth but not before, according to research published in Nature Microbiology.

Pregnant women who drank about a half a cup of caffeinated coffee daily — fewer than the recommended two cups — had slightly smaller babies than pregnant women who did not consume caffeinated beverages, data show.