Critical care decisions in fetal and neonatal medicine: ethical issues
Background
6 Since the beginning of the 1980s, the proportion of babies born with extremely low birthweights (usually premature) has increased, with the percentage doubling between 1982 and 1996.1The rate of survival for babies born very early has also been increasing steadily over the past few decades. However, most extremely premature babies still die. Even if an extremely premature baby survives to leave hospital, he or she is more likely to have health problems. There are also several other situations where babies may require intensive care. Babies born at any gestational age can have brain injury, which may lead to a wide range of disabilities later in life. A range of other serious conditions, such as heart, lung, bowel and kidney problems, can also arise in the newborn child.
Footnotes1 From rates of 0.2–0.4% in singletons and 1.9–3.9% for multiple births. Macfarlane A and Mugford M (2000) Birth Counts: Statistics of
pregnancy and childbirth, 2nd Edition, Volume 2 (London: The Stationery Office), TableA6.1.1.