For over 60 years, public health newborn screening programs have served families in the United States by identifying babies at risk of serious but treatable conditions and connecting them to clinical care. Today, more than 98% of infants receive dried blood spot screening, which entails collecting a few drops of blood during the first days of life, applying them to a paper card, and sending the card to a lab to be tested for markers of specific health conditions like congenital hypothyroidism, cystic fibrosis, and sickle cell disease. The public health impacts of newborn screening are vast, with over 7,000 infants identified annually for timely interventions. Despite these achievements, challenges in implementing newborn screening programs persist.
