After the infant’s birth, the neonatologist’s first duty is to his or her patient—the newly born infant. If clinical circumstances are different than anticipated, the physician must first consider the best interests of the baby.
The greatest pressure to resuscitate the extremely low-birth-weight infant often results from successful marketing efforts that lead families to expect that their premature infants will be cute and healthy.
Julie M.G. Rogers, PhD, C. Christopher Hook, MD, and Rachel D. Havyer, MD
The medical profession’s valuing of intellectual ability may inadvertently harm people with intellectual or cognitive disabilities who have a different notion of “the good life.”
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(8):717-726. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.8.peer1-1508.
Hydration at the end of life may be much less beneficial than generally assumed, but the emotional significance of nourishment to caregiving should not be underestimated.
Frank A. Chervenak, MD and Laurence B. McCullough, PhD
Clinical facts and physicians’ ethical obligations are critical in resolving disagreements between parents and physicians about resuscitation of an extremely premature infant.
Nonlegal, judicial, and statutory courses of action are available to patient surrogates and physicians who cannot agree on withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment.
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.