It was established in 1963, in Mumbai, India and claims to have 23,000 members, as of the year 2013[1] The head office of IAP is in Mumbai while Delhi is the seat of its official publication – Indian Pediatrics, a MEDLINE indexed medical journal.

[3][4] In 2017, the IAP was involved in controversy when a pediatrician who had exposed collaborations between vaccine manufacturers was allegedly manhandled at the organisation's annual conference and suspended from the organisation's Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Immunization Practices.

[5] The move by IAP has been criticized by other medical organisations like the Alliance of Doctors for Ethical Healthcare (ADEH) and Medico Friends Circle (MFC).

[6] In 1948, K. C. Chaudhury founded the Indian Pediatric Society, which later merged with the Association of Pediatricians to form the Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP), a single body that would represent Indian pediatricians.

The IAP held its first national conference in 1964, in Pune.