Born just a few weeks early - does it matter?

I was delighted and honoured to be invited to deliver the 2018 Pop Watkins Memorial Lecture on the subject of babies born close to term. For years, research in the newborn period has been focused mainly on babies born extremely preterm – and with good reason, as these are the babies with the most severe illness and most likely to have adverse long-term outcomes. In this lecture, I hoped to redress the balance by summarising ‘knowns’ and ‘unknowns’ about outcomes in more mature babies and by considering the implications for both clinical practice and research.