Kristi Watterberg MD

Dr. Kristi Watterberg is a Professor of Pediatrics and was Chief of the Division of Neonatology from 2006 - 2011. Dr. Watterberg completed her Pediatric and Neonatology training at UNM in 1985 and served on the UNM faculty until 1988. Subsequently, she was a faculty member at the Hershey Medical Center at Penn State University, returning to UNM in 2000. Her primary research interests are adrenal function in the fetus and newborn infant and the pathogenesis and prevention of bronchopulmonary dysplasia. Pursuing this interest, Dr. Watterberg has conducted both observational and interventional studies exploring the relationships between prenatal and postnatal inflammation, adrenal function and the development of BPD.

In 2001, she received funding from NICHD for a multicenter trial entitled, "Prophylaxis of early adrenal insufficiency to prevent BPD". The short-term results of this study were published in Pediatrics (114:1649, 2004), and showed that for infants exposed to prenatal inflammation (chorioamnionitis), early treatment with low-dose hydrocortisone increased survival and decreased BPD. The two-year follow-up of these infants showed that hydrocortisone treatment was associated with some neurodevelopmental benefits (Pediatrics 2007; 120: 40 - 48). Dr. Watterberg is the Principal Investigator at New Mexico for the NICHD Neonatal Research Network, which has multiple ongoing observational and interventional studies in the NICU.