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New proposals regarding premature infants
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
From the beeb:
"Babies born at or before 22 weeks should not be resuscitated or given intensive care, a report says.
The recommendation is being put forward by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, which considers ethical questions raised by advances in medical research."
Here is what the report recommends regarding gestation:
Born before 22 weeks: No intensive care
22-23 weeks: No intensive care, unless parents request it after a thorough discussion of the risks and doctors agree
23-24 weeks: Parents, after a thorough discussion with the healthcare team, should have the final say
24-25 weeks: Give intensive care, unless the parents and the doctors agree there is no hope of survival, or the level of suffering is too high
Above 25 weeks: Intensive care as standard
linky
Thoughts on this? Anyone have personal experience that they wish to share? I have spent time on a neonatal unit, but my experience was fairly limited, it's a very touch and go field. I haven't completely made my mind up on all this yet, I'd be interested to see what other people think.
"Babies born at or before 22 weeks should not be resuscitated or given intensive care, a report says.
The recommendation is being put forward by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, which considers ethical questions raised by advances in medical research."
Here is what the report recommends regarding gestation:
Born before 22 weeks: No intensive care
22-23 weeks: No intensive care, unless parents request it after a thorough discussion of the risks and doctors agree
23-24 weeks: Parents, after a thorough discussion with the healthcare team, should have the final say
24-25 weeks: Give intensive care, unless the parents and the doctors agree there is no hope of survival, or the level of suffering is too high
Above 25 weeks: Intensive care as standard
linky
Thoughts on this? Anyone have personal experience that they wish to share? I have spent time on a neonatal unit, but my experience was fairly limited, it's a very touch and go field. I haven't completely made my mind up on all this yet, I'd be interested to see what other people think.
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Comments
Do you mean a full term pregnancy? 40 weeks.
Well, all of that matches the up with the current abortion laws, so I think I agree on that basis. I wouldn't be able to say for definate anything further though until one of our resident medical guys comes along and gives me some stuff on how neo-natal stuff works
apparently babies born before 22 weeks have no chance of survival and babes born at 22 weeks only have a 1% chance and even then they will probably have severe disabilites
its one of them though, if it was my child, i`ll probably want everything humanly possible done to save my child
but whether its feasible/humane or not, is another matter
*feels left out*
Kidding, my experience in neonates as I said is really limited, I have been waiting for a bit for my favourite bloggers to write something about it, but nowt yet.
Do you think if the abortion law changed to an upper limit of say, 20 weeks, the law regarding resus of premature infants would have to change too? Bearing in mind that:
"About 300 babies are born in the UK each year at 23 weeks.
They have a 17% survival rate, compared with 50% for those born at 25 weeks.
Figures suggest that no baby survives at 21 weeks, while only 1% survive to leave hospital at 22 weeks."
I think bearing these statistics in mind, the ruling makes sense and in the long-term actually saves heart-ache as well as unneccessary suffering on part of the child.
For the record, I was born at 28 weeks, spent my first 3 months in hospital and was lucky enough to come out of it with only mild hemiplegia. But I think the stories of parents that end up with babies who are profoundly disabled and have no quality of life are tragic. I'm in no way advocating euthanasia or saying that theses children shouldn't live, but I expect that a lot of parents in this position under-estimate how severely disabled their children might be - getting them out the incubator and taking them home is not the end but the beginning of a million new trials.
I also think that more should be done during pregnancy to identify those mothers-to-be who are more at risk of giving birth early and doing everything posible to prolong the gestation (using stitches etc.) so that fewer births will be at 22 weeks in the first place.