Infant Development and Preterm Care

Infants born before 37 weeks of gestation face elevated risks of death and lasting complications, including impaired cognitive development, behavioral difficulties, and deficits in executive functioning that can persist well into adulthood. Researchers study how care practices in the neonatal intensive care unit — such as kangaroo mother care, which involves sustained skin-to-skin contact between parent and newborn, and broader family-centered approaches — can reduce mortality and support healthier neurodevelopmental trajectories. A central challenge is tracking outcomes reliably over time: developmental surveillance must bridge the fragmented transition from intensive neonatal care to pediatric follow-up, and many at-risk children are lost to monitoring before problems become apparent. Active questions include how to tailor interventions for the lowest-resource settings where preterm birth rates are highest, and how early biological and social factors interact to shape cognitive outcomes across the full spectrum of prematurity.

Works

75,903

Total citations

852,290

Keywords

Preterm BirthNeurodevelopmental OutcomesInfant MortalityFamily-Centered CareNeonatal Intensive Care UnitCognitive Function