Although the continuing ethical and economic debates about provision of neonatal intensive care show no sign of diminishing, a recent study seems to underline the validity of the 2006 Nuffield Council on Bioethics recommendations on resuscitation and care of extremely premature babies.The UK's EPICure study, among others, previously showed that survival rates for babies born at 24-25 weeks' gestation have improved during the past 10 years, but that those for babies born 1-2 weeks earlier remain low. A study by Ravi Swamy and colleagues, published last week in the Fetal and Neonatal Edition of Archives of Disease in Childhood, confirms that the poor survival rates for extremely premature babies have persisted despite more active resuscitation efforts. Investigators in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, reviewed case records to document survival in 229 live babies born at 22 or 23 weeks' gestation. Median survival times of the babies who died increased from 11 h in 1993-97, to 20 h in 1998-2002, and to 3.7 days in 2003-07, but these increases are attributable to lengthier active resuscitation and intensive care treatment.
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