Negative Studies and the Future of Prenatal Counseling at the Margin of Gestational Viability

Despite advances in the care of infants born extremely preterm the risks of mortality and significant morbidity remain high and difficult to predict with certainty.1,2 Obstetricians and neonatologists have long partnered to counsel expectant parents facing extremely preterm birth, unified by the foundational principle that in some cases, outcomes are so uncertain and potentially so bad that parents should have the ultimate say in whether resuscitative efforts are initiated in the delivery room.3 For decades, we have obsessed over how we ought to define the borders of the mythical “grey zone” of gestational viability, in a seemingly Quixotic effort to define sharp gestational edges to the zone of parental discretion.

source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(23)00282-2/fulltext?rss=yes