Guidelines exist for delivery-room treatment for newborns at the margins of viability, and when the rules and limits are reached, parental values are important.

A physician’s self-disclosure greatly impacts patient counseling.

Neutral, nondirective counseling of women who are about to give birth to extremely premature infants can undermine their autonomous decision making rather than promoting it.

Common complications of preterm birth, their symptoms, causes, and probable consequences are identified.

Nonlegal, judicial, and statutory courses of action are available to patient surrogates and physicians who cannot agree on withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment.

The ability of current NICU care to promise extremely preterm infants a childhood without physical or neurologic impairment is severely limited.

When evaluating the developments and complications of a marginally viable premature infant, physicians and parents must work together to decide on treatment that is in the infant’s best interest.

Communication and nonpaternalistic counseling are crucial to women delivering extremely premature infants.

The changing social views of fatigue and sleepiness have contributed to the medicalizing lack of sleep.

An overview of the duties of expert medical witnesses and general medical witnesses in helping the judicial system gather objective information in cases of injury that may result from medical impairment.