Due to the advances in neonatal intensive care medicine, prenatal ultrasound-guided diagnostic measures and paediatric surgical options, conditions have been established to achieve long-term survival in newborns with severe diseases. In addition, this means that the "non-paediatric" physician can be increasingly confronted with patients who would not have survived childhood some decades ago. Therefore, the article summarises concisely selected diseases of premature infants and newborns, e. g., congenital abdominal wall defects, and outlines possible long-term consequences based on the surgical interventions and their basic diseases, respectively, which need to be adequately cared for in the case of a surgical disease of the former patient of paediatric surgery. The overview cannot be considered as a complete revision course; however, it might constitute a basic outline for thought-provoking impulses for personal professional skills and expertise in managing such patients in later age from a surgical perspective.