Premature Baby Refused Care by UK Doctors Following Rules

[Michael]

Outside my very limited scope of medical knowledge, but the article specifically states the doctors refused to give the woman an injection, so I presume they're referring to an actual method.

[AllanF]

the doctors should have taken measures to prevent the premature birth

Just curious. How should they have done that?

If the waters had broken then there is nothing that can be done, if it is coming it is coming! Not like you can push it back in there. The injection i guess would have been to stop contractions however if the Dr saw a reason, which i assume there would have been, to get the baby out then they would take this course of action. It is not like Drs pat themselves on the back when a baby dies. The issue is not black and white.

As stated it was a judgement call based on guidelines, ie a standard that other medical experts held to be reasonable. The Dr made the call and has to live with it, as does the mother. There of course will be a lot of "if onlys" but had the child survived and had severe brain damage and respiratory problems/defects then there would also be a lot of "if onlys".

[Steve James]

Well, water breaking or not, I don't think there's much that can be done. Not a doctor, but have been at my kid's birth and have experienced my wife having a miscarriage. It's nature (and the woman's body) that decides (and should decide) when the baby/fetus will be ejected. If the body decides that it should be before a certain time, then that's the right time. If, in this case, the fetus had come out a 4 weeks earlier than it did, it'd be a miscarriage. And, like most, I don't have the medical background to know when or where to set the guidelines for viability.

[Mut]

I think that on the balance of probabilities (given that I am not privvy to the medical complications) the docters probabally made the right call. I doubt that it was a cost of life issue, but rather a quality of life issue.

A baby born after that short a gestation period is bound to have many complications for life. These complications impact on all parties involved (the individual, the family and the state) on many levels. I work with people who have an intellectual disability and speaking anecdotally many families that have children with severe ID (not talking cute little downies here) become dysfunctional as a result of the stress that comes with the raising of such a person. And that is before the individual is passed from family care into state care.

Essentially this is a very sad case and my heart goes out to the family, but I would hope that if I was in a similar situation that the docters would follow the same course of action....[edit] actually I would hope that they could euthenase my child in those circumstances.

[Brady]

Essentially this is a very sad case and my heart goes out to the family, but I would hope that if I was in a similar situation that the docters would follow the same course of action....[edit] actually I would hope that they could euthenase my child in those circumstances.

Exactly, if the doctors refused care for a premature newborn they just delivered, that is assuredly assigning that baby to a short and painful life. It is essentially passive murder, I don't know of any cases of babies born that early who live without any care. If such a decision is going to be made, I'd think it would ease a lot of suffering to at least offer the option of abortion or euthanization.

One of my biggest gripes with our system of medicine is we don't offer the option of ending it painlessly. I think this is a necessary option in the case of refusal of treatment.

[Michael]

Suicidal woman allowed to die after taking overdose because doctors feared saving her life would have been 'assault'

[qiphlow]

Suicidal woman allowed to die after taking overdose because doctors feared saving her life would have been 'assault'

good for them.