From across the Fjord (see what I did there?)

Source: BBC Health News

More Premature Babies are surviving childbirth. Good news, right? Well. . .

According to medical researchers in Sweden, 70% of infants born from 22 to 26 weeks gestation (40 weeks is full term) survive through at least age one due to advances in medical technology including resuscitation, ventilation and incubation. The study spanned from 2004-2007 with a perinatal mortality (death rate post childbirth) of 45%. In other words more than 1/2 of the 1,011 premature infants survived. Again, that’s good, right? Not necessarily.

Did I mention that over half of the babies that survived had serious health problems from which some of them eventually died? The parents of 40% of the surviving sick infants who were placed in a NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) had to make the difficult decision to withdraw intensive care and life support because of the poor prognosis.

So there is an emotional toll to consider along the physical toll. There is also a financial toll. University of Oxford Health Economists estimate the cost of an average preterm baby at 1.5 times that of their full term nursery mates. This translates to an additional $1.6 billion (yes, with a “b”) cost per year for the UK. Okay you arm chair ethics gurus, what conclusions does one draw? Yes, the cost to Sweden would have been more appropriate but it’s the BBC and I didn’t write the article.

It is, perhaps sad but not at all surprising, that medical providers in Sweden tend to be “less aggressive” in their interventions with significantly premature babies than we in the States.

posted by David Marc Schwadron, Esq.