Neonatal Medicine News

The FDA said it was warning women of childbearing age about the synthetically produced compound vinpocetine found in dietary supplements or as a stand-alone product.

Up to 5% of infants born in the United States to mothers infected with Chagas disease become congenitally infected, according to a review published in The Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society. If left untreated, these infants can develop chronic infection at a young age, which puts them at risk for serious heart and gastrointestinal complications.

The FDA on Friday approved the first gene therapy for children aged 2 years or younger with spinal muscular atrophy, a leading genetic cause of infant mortality, according to an agency press release.

Caregivers of premature infants infected with respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, experience high levels of stress. Research published in Clinical Pediatrics showed that this stress still affected many caregivers 1 month after their child was discharged.

Milk expression within 8 hours after birth in mothers with very low-birth-weight, or VLBW, infants was associated with a higher probability of being able to produce milk throughout infant hospitalization in the NICU, according to a recent study published in Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Cytomegalovirus, or CMV, is relatively common in the United States, with nearly one in five children infected with the virus by age 5 years. More than half of adults will become infected by age 40 years.

Findings recently published in The Lancet Global Health suggested that although a decrease in the prevalence of infants born with low birth weight, or LBW, was observed between 2000 and 2015, an estimated 20.5 million children — or one in seven — are still born weighting less than 2,500 g, or approximately 5.5 lbs.

States that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act did not see any significant differences in rates of low birth weight or preterm birth outcomes overall, but there were significant improvements in disparities for black infants, according to research published in JAMA.

Compared with the general population, global subpopulations of children in care, correctional, special education, specialized clinical and Aboriginal populations had significantly higher prevalence of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, according to study findings published in Addiction.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Seeking to address the 60% of maternal deaths that occur during following delivery, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recently updated its postpartum office visit recommendations, a speaker at the annual Clinical and Scientific Meeting said.