Comments on the 20^th Anniversary of NeoReviews

In his introduction, “Anniversaries,” Alistair G.S. Philip, the editor of NeoReviews until 2017, reminisces about the 1960s to 1990s, highlighting various advances that long ago became a part of the scientific and professional sediment in our field. However, all of these recollections preceded the inception of the all online journal, NeoReviews, one of the first of its kind. At the journal’s 10th birthday, Alistair assembled a collection of “seminal contributions” in neonatal-perinatal medicine that had been published in NeoReviews, (1) which were then subsequently published in a book, Milestones in Neonatal/Perinatal Medicine. (2) Moreover, Alistair’s masterful and judiciously thorough recounting of the history of our field of neonatology was published in 2005, entitled “The Evolution of Neonatology.” (3) In this commentary, we wish to acknowledge Alistair’s dedication in informing his readership about the scientific and clinical advances in neonatology. Here, we offer our own perspective on what has transpired over the last 20 years of NeoReview’s life, but with an eye toward the future.

As Alistair has pointed out, the subfield of newborn medicine evolved within general pediatrics sometime in the late 1940s and 1950s, an unusual, but remarkable, legacy from Martin A. Couney and Pierre-Constant Budin and their “incubator babies” sideshows at amusement parks, world fairs, and exhibitions. (4) The term “neonatology” itself, however, was not introduced until 1960 by Alexander Schaffer (5) in close timing with the advent of intensive care nurseries, which were more than just special facilities for preterm infants. The original research defining the nascent field focused on thermoregulation, nutrition, and growth of a neonate, quickly distinguishing neonatology from general pediatrics because of the unique requirements of the newborn, especially the preterm infant. As survival of preterm infants increased over subsequent decades, advances in cardiorespiratory support and …