Neonatal Medicine News

The NIH recently announced that the labeling for the antiviral acyclovir has been updated to include information for health care providers on the recommended usage and dosage in newborns aged 3 months and younger who are infected with herpes simplex virus. The drug is typically prescribed to adults with HSV infections.

Maternal stress level during the first postnatal year was “strongly positively associated” with BMI z-score in girls, according to findings recently published in BMC Public Health.

After controlling for family-related confounders, lower birth weight was associated with an increased risk for several psychiatric disorders, including ADHD, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression, researchers found.

In a recent meta-analysis published in JAMA Pediatrics, buprenorphine was the optimal treatment for neonatal abstinence syndrome, whereas morphine — considered the standard of care in most hospitals — was consistently among the least effective treatments.

Continuous infusions of vancomycin in infants resulted in optimal concentrations more quickly and at lower total doses compared with intermittent infusions, according to the results of a randomized controlled trial published in Pediatrics.

U.S. counties that have shortages of mental health care providers and higher rates of long-term unemployment also have higher rates of neonatal abstinence syndrome, or NAS, according to research published in JAMA.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force gave an ‘A’ level recommendation to prophylactic ocular topical medication to prevent gonococcal ophthalmia neonatorum regardless of a woman’s gestational age, according to a report recently published in JAMA.

Exclusive breastfeeding in hospitals improved following the introduction of a protocol that delayed newborn baths for 12 or more hours after birth, according to research published in the Journal for Obstetrics, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing.

A quarter of children aged younger than 2 years with bronchiolitis who visited U.S. EDs between 2007 and 2015 received antibiotics, even though 70% of those patients had no bacterial coinfection, according to study results published in the Journal of Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.

Nine percent of all U.S. births between 2007 and 2016 were to men aged 40 years and older, according to a study in BMJ.