Providing and Forgoing Resuscitative Therapy for Babies of Very Low Birth Weight

Abstract

We compared practices at three different NICUs and tried to determine whether physicians' practices regarding the use or withholding of resuscitative therapy were consistent from one hosptial to another. Resuscitation practices differed among the three hospitals we studied. There were differences in the number of babies who received resuscitative therapy, in the components of therapy, and in decisions to withhold resuscitative efforts. In spite of these differences, certain factors emerged as consistent predictors of poor outcome after resuscitative therapy. Babies who had low five-minute Apgar scores and babies who required