Neonatal and infant care and outcomes.

A major advance in neonatal care, surfactant replacement therapy, has received wide endorsement and approval after being subject to over 30 clinical trials. Details of clinical application and full impact on outcomes are in the process of being determined. Neonatal outcome data indicate that the focus of improvement in survival now rests primarily on the extremely low birth weight (less than 750 g) infant. There is additional need for clarity of actual survival by gestational age in the less-than-28-week cohort. The differences and limitations of neonatal and obstetric methods of gestational age assessment are important. Significant contributions to our knowledge of problems such as retinopathy of prematurity, syphilis, and infants of diabetic mothers have recently appeared.