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Neonatology

Neonatologist
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Occupation
Names Doctor, Medical Specialist
Occupation type
Specialty
Activity sectors
Medicine, Pediatrics
Description
Education required

Neonatology is a subspecialty of pediatrics that consists of the medical care of newborn infants, especially the ill or premature newborn infant. 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 requiring special medical care due to prematurity, low birth weight, intrauterine growth retardation, congenital malformations (birth defects), sepsis, pulmonary hypoplasia or birth asphyxias.

While high infant mortality rates were recognized by the British medical community at least as early as the 1860s, modern neonatal intensive care is a relatively recent advance. In 1898 Dr. Joseph DeLee established the first premature infant incubator station in Chicago, Illinois. The first American textbook on prematurity was published in 1922. In 1952 Dr. Virginia Apgar described the Apgar score scoring system as a means of evaluating a newborn's condition. It was not until 1965 that the first American newborn intensive care unit (NICU) was opened in New Haven, Connecticut and in 1975 the American Board of Pediatrics established sub-board certification for neonatology.


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Wikipedia

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