Objectives: The aim of this research was to single out children with early neonatal sepsis in a three-year period and to determine the incidence of sepsis, risk factors in pregnancy and childbirth, as well as the reason and time of the relocation of a neonate to the Department of Neonatology, to describe laboratory findings, clinical symptoms and early signs of sepsis. Study design: case-control historical study Subjects and methods: Participants were newborns diagnosed with sepsis at the Clinic for Pediatrics, University Hospital Center Osijek from the beginning of 2017 to the end of 2019. For each newborn, the control was the first newborn born after him without sepsis. Children who died in the early neonatal period or had major congenital malformations, as well as premature infants, were excluded from the study. Medical records were used to obtain the data for the study. Results: Septic neonates are more often hypertrophic, with gestational age ≥ 40. Acute diseases are twice as common in septic neonates. Every fifth child is born from meconium amniotic fluid and every tenth after the RVP > 12 h. The most common reasons for transferring the neonate to the Department of Neonatology are elevated inflammatory parameters and rigidity. The most common first symptom is dyspnea. Newborns with sepsis have pathological findings three times more often than healthy newborns, and in 75% of cases elevated CRP as well. Conclusion: Risk factors in pregnancy for the development of sepsis in newborns are acute infections, pregnancy-related diseases, meconium amniotic fluid, and RVP > 12 h. Most often, sepsis presents itself immediately after the delivery. In the first hours after the delivery, there is a change in behavior, hypertonia or hypotonia, and elevated inflammatory parameters. On the first day of a septic newborn’s life, dyspnea occurred most often, followed by cyanosis, jaundice, tone disorders and fever.