Michael Obladen, MD, PhD (1944-)
Michael Obladen, MD, PhD (born 1944) is a German neonatologist who stands as one of the most influential figures in the development of the specialty in Europe.
He studied medicine and philosophy at the Universities of Würzburg, Frankfurt, and Heidelberg — where his philosophy teachers included Theodor Adorno and Jürgen Habermas — graduating MD from Heidelberg in 1969. After a pediatric residency at the University Children’s Hospital in Heidelberg, he completed a research fellowship in neonatology at the University of California, San Diego in 1975–1976, earning a diploma in neonatology there, and subsequently his PhD and habilitation at Heidelberg in 1977.
He held faculty and leadership positions at Heidelberg, Tübingen, and Bochum before becoming Director of Neonatology at the Free University of Berlin (West) from 1986 to 1995, and then Director of the Department of Neonatology at Charité University Medicine Berlin from 1995 to 2008 — Germany’s largest neonatology department. He has been Professor Emeritus at Charité since 2008.
Since 1970, Obladen has been a driving force in the research and clinical implementation of neonatology in Germany and Europe, setting standards for newborn intensive care through his textbook Neonatal Intensive Care and playing a key role in establishing neonatology as a recognized pediatric subspecialty in Germany. His research spanned surfactant deficiency and RDS treatment, erythropoietin use for anemia of prematurity, and neuroprotection in perinatal brain injury.
In retirement, Obladen turned his energies toward the cultural and medical history of the newborn. Over 50 years he has compiled sources on neonatal history, culminating in his Oxford Textbook of The Newborn: A Cultural and Medical History (Oxford University Press, 2021), a 3,000-year survey of the newborn’s place in medicine and society. He also produced a well-regarded series of historical articles on topics such as neonatal resuscitation and birth asphyxia.
He served as President of the German Society of Neonatology in 1989, received the Maternité Prize of the German Society of Perinatal Medicine in 1996, and was named an honorary member of the German Society of Neonatology in 2007.
- Maier RF, Speer CP. Michael Obladen: Promoter of Clinical, Scientific, and Academic Neonatology in Germany and Europe. Neonatology. 2024;121(5):544-546. doi: 10.1159/000538813. Epub 2024 May 8. PMID: 38718767.
- Michael Obladen’s web site and C.V. https://michaelobladen.de/en/index.html
Textbooks
- Maier RF, Obladen M, Stiller B, Zemlin M (eds.). Obladens Neugeborenen-Intensivmedizin: Evidenz und Erfahrung. 10th ed. Berlin: Springer; 2023. ISBN 978-3-662-66571-8. (Standard German NICU reference, now in its 10th edition)
- Wille L, Obladen M. Neonatal Intensive Care: Principles and Guidelines. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer; 1981. (English translation of an earlier edition of the foundational textbook, now quite outdated)
- Obladen M. Oxford Textbook of The Newborn: A Cultural and Medical History. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2021. ISBN 978-0-19-885480-7.
Last Updated on 04/02/26