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After your baby leaves the hospital, he or she will likely need follow-up care. It is important to follow your child’s treatment plan and get regular care. It is also important to take care of your mental health as you care for your baby at home.

Signs and symptoms of RDS usually happen at birth or within the first few hours that follow. Depending on the severity of a newborn's RDS, he or she may develop bronchopulmonary dysplasia or other medical problems, such as bleeding in the brain, kidney failure, or lung complications.

Taking steps to ensure a healthy pregnancy might prevent your newborn from being born before his or her lungs have fully developed. Your doctor may also give you injections of a corticosteroid medicine if he or she thinks you may give birth too early. This medicine can speed up development of the lungs, brain, and kidneys in your baby and surfactant production.

RDS is a type of neonatal respiratory disease that is caused most often by a lack of surfactant in the lungs. A fetus's lungs start making surfactant during the third trimester of pregnancy, or weeks 26 through labor and delivery. Surfactant coats the insides of the air sacs, or alveoli, in the lungs. This helps keep the lungs open so breathing can occur after birth.