Oppakken of wegleggen? Beslissen over het in leven houden van extreem te vroeg geboren kinderen

Samenvatting

Picking Up or Laying Aside? Deciding about the Life of Children Born Extremely Prematurely. Decisions on whether to start or to forgo life-prolonging treatment for children born extremely premature are structured like infanticide, but the present practice differs from infanticide in the past. The decisions to prolong or end the life of prematurely born children are taken on the neonatal intensive care units in academic hospitals. Technology plays a vital role in this decision making. Further, the legal context for these decisions differs from what was the context in the past. Parents, however, play a central role, as they did in accounts of infanticide. The practice of two neonatal wards was studied by 'participant observation'. The medical policy of the two wards differs on a crucial matter. One ward starts life-prolonging treatment for all newborns, the other sets a limit to the minimal gestational age at which treatment is started. The two neonatal practices are compared with what is known about the practice of infanticide. 68 References. Adapted from the source document.