Delivery Room Resuscitation Decisions for Extremely Premature Infants

Abstract

Physicians resuscitated extremely premature infants at delivery when they were very uncertain about an infant's prognosis or when the parents' desires about treatment were unknown. When parents' preferences were known, parents usually determined the amount of treatment provided at delivery. Resuscitation at delivery usually postponed death by only a few days, decreasing prognostic uncertainty and honoring what physicians perceived were parents' wishes for care, without substantially contributing to overtreatment.