This edition of the Manual of Neonatal Care has been completely updated and extensively revised to reflect the changes in fetal, perinatal, and neonatal care that have occurred since the sixth edition. This portable text covers current and practical approaches to evaluation and management of conditions encountered in the fetus and the newborn, as practiced in high volume clinical services that include contemporary prenatal and postnatal care of infants with routine, as well as complex medical and surgical problems. Written by expert authors from the Harvard Program in Neonatology and other major neonatology programs across the United States, the manual’s outline format gives readers rapid access to large amounts of valuable information quickly. The Children’s Hospital Boston Neonatology Program at Harvard has grown to include 57 attending neonatologists and 18 fellows who care for more than 28,000 newborns delivered annually. The book also includes the popular appendices on topics such as common NICU medication guidelines, the effects of maternal drugs on the fetus, and the use of maternal medications during lactation. Plus, there are intubation/sedation guidelines and a guide to neonatal resuscitation on the inside covers that provide crucial information in a quick and easy format.

Vitamin D deficiency, circulating levels lower than 15 ng/ml, is an epidemic disease worldwide with more than a billion people suffering of it in the beginning of the 21-century. Besides its impact on mineral and bone metabolism, these low vitamin D levels are also associated with a diversity of non-skeletal complications, among them cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, multiple sclerosis, cancer, tuberculosis, and immune system dysfunction. Chronic Kidney Disease is also a very common disease, affecting more than 10% of the world population, ranging from stage 1 to stage 5 before dialysis. Approximately 1% of the population in industrialized countries is affected by end-stage renal disease (ESRD), needing a renal replacement therapy either hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis, and ultimately by renal transplantation. Those CKD patients are more susceptible to exhibit reduced vitamin D stocks. Consequently, more than eighty percent of CKD patients have either insufficient or deficient vitamin D levels for multiple reasons.