Terrie Inder (left) and moderator Mallika Marshall

BWH has a long history of transforming health care for mothers and babies, from the 1832 founding of BWH predecessor hospital Boston Lying-In—one of America’s first maternity hospitals—up through the fascinating neurodevelopment research being explored by BWH’s Department of Pediatric Newborn Medicine (PNM) today. During an informative session on newborn health, PNM Chair Terrie Inder, MD, MBChB, shared how BWH is helping to build a better brain beginning with babies in utero, by focusing on different types of risks to the developing brain. From maternal obesity to infant congenital heart disease to the effects of pharmacological agents given to babies experiencing pain, BWH’s Sarbattama Sen, MD, Cynthia Ortinau, MD, and Christopher McPherson, PharmD, respectively, took attendees through the many factors that can impact a baby’s brain development before and after birth and later in life. Physician and WBZ-TV medical reporter Mallika Marshall, MD, moderated the session.