International Journal of Neonatology
Aims and Scope
IJNE · ISSN 2998-4785
The International Journal of Neonatology publishes peer-reviewed research on the newborn: the physiology of the transition to independent life, the conditions that arise in it, the care given in response, and the outcomes that follow.
The journal is international in the plain sense. It publishes work from any country and any setting in which newborns are cared for, from high-volume intensive care units to services where a newborn’s first hours are managed with limited equipment.
Research we welcome
What the journal publishes
Clinical, translational, laboratory, methodological and population research all belong here when the newborn is the subject of the question. The areas below describe the remit; they are not a list of permitted topics.
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01
The neonatal course and intensive care
Resuscitation and stabilization at birth, respiratory support and ventilation, hemodynamic and cardiovascular management, thermoregulation, pain and comfort, and the organization of care within the unit. Quality-improvement work belongs here when it is reported with a method that others can appraise and reuse.
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02
Preterm birth, growth and nutrition
The care of preterm and low-birth-weight infants; enteral and parenteral nutrition and the use of human milk; growth, body composition and metabolic bone health; feeding practice; and the conditions particular to preterm birth, among them retinopathy of prematurity and chronic lung disease.
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03
The neonatal brain and development
Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy and neuroprotection, neonatal seizures, intraventricular hemorrhage and white-matter injury, neuroimaging and continuous neuromonitoring, and developmental and family-centered care. Follow-up studies belong here when the outcome under study arises from a neonatal condition, exposure, intervention or course of care.
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04
Infection, immunity and neonatal physiology
Early-onset and late-onset sepsis, congenital infection, antimicrobial use and stewardship, and the development of immunity in the newborn. The journal also publishes physiological, metabolic, pharmacological and developmental-biology research on the newborn and on the fetal-to-neonatal transition, including mechanistic and laboratory work.
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05
Congenital conditions, screening and neonatal surgery
Congenital anomalies and their prenatal or postnatal diagnosis; newborn screening programs, including metabolic, genetic, hearing, vision and cardiac screening; genomic and genetic investigation where the neonatal question is substantive; and neonatal surgery, anesthesia and perioperative care.
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06
Newborn health in populations and systems
Perinatal and neonatal epidemiology, global newborn health, implementation science, and research on services, workforce, transport and the organization of care. Measurement, methods, simulation, devices and informatics belong here when they materially advance neonatal research or newborn care.
Adjacent and interdisciplinary work
Where the scope extends
Neonatology does not begin at birth and does not end at discharge, and the journal’s scope follows the science rather than the calendar.
Perinatal and maternal-fetal research — pregnancy, obstetric care, placental biology, fetal medicine — is published here when the neonatal transition, a neonatal condition, a newborn outcome or a question of neonatal care is materially central to the work. That test is what keeps a neonatal journal distinct from a general obstetric or maternal-health one.
Longer-term outcomes are published when they arise from neonatal disease, prematurity, neonatal exposures, neonatal interventions or neonatal care, and keep a clear scientific connection to the neonatal period. An interest in a child at two years is, here, an interest in what the newborn period did.
Methodological, engineering and computational work is published when it materially addresses neonatal science or newborn care: a device sized and tested for neonates, a measurement validated in newborns, a model built on neonatal data, a simulation designed for neonatal procedural training.
Scope boundaries
What falls outside the remit
Four kinds of work sit outside the journal’s subject matter. Stating them directly saves authors a submission cycle.
- Obstetric and maternal-health research in which no neonatal question is materially at stake.
- Pediatric research on older infants and children with no substantive connection to the neonatal period.
- Engineering, software, device and methodological work whose neonatal relevance is incidental — a newborn dataset used to demonstrate a general method, without a neonatal finding.
- Laboratory and animal studies with no articulated route to neonatal biology or newborn care.
Each becomes eligible at the point where a neonatal question is genuinely the subject. Authors who are unsure where their work sits are welcome to describe the neonatal question to the editorial office before submitting.
Assessing fit
Three questions that settle most cases
- Is the newborn the subject of the question, or only the setting in which it was studied?
- Would the finding change how newborns are understood, cared for, or studied?
- Can the neonatal relevance be stated directly in the abstract, without relying on implication?
A manuscript that answers yes to all three is within scope, whatever discipline it comes from.
Scope and assessment
How a manuscript in scope is then assessed
Belonging to the journal’s subject matter and being ready for publication are separate judgments, made separately.
Assessment against the journal’s scope and standards follows the journal’s peer-review process. Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.
The complete process is described on the About and Editorial Policies pages.
Novelty, a positive result, clinical benefit or immediate practice change are matters for peer-review assessment, not conditions of scope. A well-conducted study reporting no effect concerns the same subject matter as one reporting a large effect.
Submission
Sending a manuscript to the journal
Manuscripts within the scope described above may be submitted by any of the approved routes.
- Primary route: ManuscriptZoneoap.manuscriptzone.net
- Alternative route: Simple manuscript submission formopenaccesspub.org/manuscript-submission-form
- Assisted route: Editorial email[email protected]
Authors must use only one submission route for the same manuscript.