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.
Physicians should go beyond basic medical diagnosis and treatment to offer support to families about the gamut of social and emotional issues that are involved with caring for a severely disabled child.
Physicians need to carefully explain the difficult medical realities of carrying a fetus with severe congenital abnormalities to term but then follow the wishes of a religious family who ask for reasonable medical care.