Abstract
Singapore ranks amongst the very few countries with the lowest neonatal and infant mortality rates in the world in the last decade. Advance in obstetric care and the development of neonatal intensive care are important contributory factors, built upon a solid foundation of socio-economic improvements and sound primary maternal and child health services. Riding on the waves of global technological advances in neonatal care, the development of neonatal-perinatal medicine in Singapore has reached a crucial stage when the challenge is to achieve further reduction of our perinatal mortality without a concomitant increase in long-term mortality of the survivors. The journey of neonatology in Singapore mirrors that in other developed countries venturing into neonatal intensive care over the past half-century. Rarely have the processes and products of scientific medicine been as heralded and harangued, as lauded and condemned, as publicised and misunderstood as they have in the context of neonatology. We have overcome major challenges and neonatology is now recognised as the first paediatric subspecialty in Singapore. Our vision is to continue to develop neonatology as a scientific art and an artistic science in medicine.