Infancy, Child Nutrition & Development

Neonatology

Neonatology is a subspecialty of pediatrics that consists of the medical care of newborn infants, especially the ill or premature newborn. It is a hospital-based specialty, and is usually practiced in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). The principal patients of neonatologists are newborn infants who are ill or require special medical care due to prematurity, low birth weight, intrauterine growth restriction, congenital malformations (birth defects), sepsis, pulmonary hypoplasia or birth asphyxia.  In modern NICUs, infants weighing more than 1000 grams and born after 27 weeks gestation have an approximately 90% chance of survival and the majority have normal neurological development