Treatments for Premature Babies

The earlier a baby is born before term, the greater the problems it is likely to face. Doctors explain the range of treatment given to premature babies, from supporting breathing to preventing infections.

Dr. Jeremy Marks: Babies who are born prematurely having different complications depending on how early their born, so the earlier a baby is born from time the more trouble the baby will have with his breathing and with the circulation. Babies are also very acceptable to infection and if you combine a great acceptability to infection as well as very poorly developed lungs at 23 weeks gestation over 90% of the babies die, and after once they survived very few go home without any problems at all. Dr. William Meadow: It’s not always easy to know what is in the babies best interest we do the best we can we can do tests to see whether the babies had brain damage that’s the most concerning damage that we can see to a baby. Sometimes there is terrible bowel damage that will also make it very difficult for the baby to survive. The brain damages usually the biggest concern that families have and the physicians have, it’s a little one clear whether it would be a wonderful thing just have a baby survive if for the next 60 years the baby will never walk, never talk, never see, never hear, never interact with the family in any meaning full way. Many people would believe that, that’s not a great out come. So what happens? Dr. William Meadow: Well parents and physician’s talk and to the extended we can be role to be certain that, that’s the prognosis for this individual infant, we may decide that is not worth continuing in extraordinary needs or support. We might not do yet another mode of vitalization we might not yet another kind of antibiotic we might even in certain cases with our neurology prognosis is quite recently say what were doing for this baby isn’t human and would rather let the baby stay in the mothers arms and if the baby dies, the baby will die. For practically then we will find a quite room for the baby and the family and the nurses usually who are involved at that point as well. And we give the baby to the mom and the best in shortly those babies will die. The difficulty is, is that a less said thing that having the baby survives terribly impaired for a very long time. Those are the most difficult ethical issues that we deal with in the neurology.