AIM: To describe the concept of preterm birth in the history of medicine in France, from the 17th century up until the end of the 20th century, on the basis of old medical textbooks. METHODS: Historical manuscripts and books held in medical libraries and from our personal collection were examined. Digital copies of medical textbooks online were also studied. RESULTS: Premature deliveries were often referred to as spontaneous abortions or miscarriages, irrespective of the infant's condition at birth. The difference between growth restriction and prematurity was not known. At the end of the 18th century, care for newborn infants entered the age of modern medicine, with observations of the newborn infant and its illnesses and experiments concerning nutrition and thermoregulation treatments. The responsibility for newborn infants, long allocated to midwives and obstetricians, was passed to neonatologists and paediatricians in the 1960s, thanks to developments in our knowledge of neonatal physiology in general and respiration, nutrition and thermoregulation in particular. CONCLUSION: This article delays the history of medicine concerned the care of preterm infants by obstetricians and then neonatologists, from the 17th century to modern period.