Efforts to improve the survival rates of babies born before 24 weeks of pregnancy have not been successful, researchers claim today.
More time is now spent on resuscitation of these babies than 15 years ago – but in general this only adds days to their lives, according to the Archives of Disease in Childhood.
The study, conducted in the north of England, examined the fate of 229 babies born at 22 or 23 weeks of pregnancy between 1993 and 2007.
Some 210 of them died and 34 per cent of these lived for longer than six hours.
By 2007 a baby that was given active resuscitation lived on average 3.7 days. In 1993 this had been just 11 hours.
Out of the 19 survivors, six were born before 1997, six between 1997 and 2002 and six between 2003 and 2007.
The researchers, led by Dr Nicholas Embleton, of the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, say parents often push for treatment – in spite of advice from doctors. The issue is "extremely contentious", Dr Embleton said.
He writes: "These figures indicate that babies born at 22 to 23 weeks are increasingly being actively treated and for significantly longer in intensive care, but that the outcome is still the same.
"Our local experience is that most parents request an active approach immediately after delivery at 23 weeks’ gestation, despite counselling from experienced clinicians using nationally consistent survival data."
Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed 2010; doi 10.1136/adc.2009.171629
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