Abstract: As a severe neonatal intestinal disease, necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) affects preterm infants predominantly. NEC-related mortality has remained high and its pathogenesis is elusive. Recent studies have demonstrated that noncoding RNAs (ncRNA), especially micro RNAs (miRNA) and long noncoding RNAs (lncRNA), play important roles in the occurrence and progression of inflammatory intestinal diseases. Furthermore, as a new potential prevention for NEC, exosomes contain a huge quantity of effective ingredients, i.e. ncRNAs. This review summarized the roles of ncRNAs in pathogenesis and prevention of NEC so as to provide rationales for developing new control measures.