The 2017 annual meeting of the Swiss Society of Neonatology was devoted to perinatal and neonatal infections. Apart from the members of the Neonatal Society, representatives of the Paediatric Infectious Diseases Group Switzerland (www.pigs.ch) were invited to join this meeting, and five sessions were presented on this important topic. The meeting focused on vertical infections, neonatal sepsis in Switzerland and on controversies about microbial screening and antimicrobial use in neonatal medicine; a discussion with a panel of experts followed the two keynotes on the latter issue, presented by Prof . Christoph Bührer from Berlin, and Dr Martin Stocker from Lucerne. Once again, young Swiss neonatologists and paediatricians weree given the opportunity to present their research projects as a short report at the beginning of the scientific program. Prizes for the best short report and the best poster were awarded at the end of the meeting.