The problem of strengthening and maintaining health in Russia is one of the priorities of state policy. In this regard, special attention is paid to the protection of motherhood and childhood, including the search for ways to reduce the impact of adverse factors on the health of mothers and children. Purpose: to assess the impact of complicated births on the health of newborns. Materials and methods: based on official statistics, the calculation and analysis of neonatal morbidity and the frequency of complicated births in the Russian Federation and its federal districts in 2017-2021 was carried out. Using Spearman's non-parametric rank correlation method, a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the impact of complicated births on the health of children in federal districts with the highest and lowest incidence rates was carried out. Statistical data processing was carried out using MS Office-2016 and StatSoft-Statistica 10.0 software packages. Results and discussion: in the federal district with the highest level of complicated births, the highest incidence rate of newborns (Northwestern Federal District) was observed, and in the federal district with the lowest level of complicated births, the lowest (Southern Federal District). The high frequency of complicated births and morbidity of children in the Northwestern Federal District was associated with the values of indicators exceeding both the average Russian and the average district levels in its individual regions. The general decrease in the incidence of newborns in the Southern Federal District by 15% over five years was accompanied by an almost annual general increase in complicated births, which was ensured by an increase in rates in almost all of its subjects. Despite the fact that in the period 2017-2021 in the vast majority of subjects included in the studied federal districts, the change in the frequency of complications in childbirth was accompanied by a unidirectional change in the incidence of children, in some regions this pattern was not observed. Statistical analysis showed that over a five-year period, the impact of changes in the rate of complicated births on the incidence rate of newborns in the Northwestern Federal District (R2=0.83) was 1.8 times higher than in the Southern Federal District (R2=0.45). A regional assessment of the federal districts showed that the lower the number of complicated births in the region, the lower the number of sick newborns in it, and vice versa. This dependence was revealed both for the federal district with high and low incidence of newborns. Conclusion: the level of frequency of complicated births can affect the incidence of children in federal districts, both with high and low incidence rates, and it can be considered as one of the regional risk factors for children's health.