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Childbearing Choices: What Helps, What Doesn't, and What You Thought You Knew
Author(s) -
Mercurio Mark R.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
hastings center report
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.515
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1552-146X
pISSN - 0093-0334
DOI - 10.1002/hast.676
Subject(s) - medicine , prenatal care , obstetrics and gynaecology , pregnancy , health care , maternity care , obstetrics , family medicine , nursing , population , law , environmental health , biology , political science , genetics
Childbearing is an increasingly complicated matter, which has evolved significantly over the past several decades. Treatment options for infertility have expanded. Prenatal testing and treatment have led to an evolution in obstetrical decision‐making, wherein the risks and benefits to the fetus and future child are better understood and more strongly considered in medical management of the pregnant woman. Obstetrics appears to be increasingly interventional; one in three babies in the United States is now born by cesarean section. Neonatal intensive care has markedly improved outcomes for premature babies. A pregnant woman may now be presented with many options— obstetrician or midwife, home or hospital delivery, choices among prenatal testing and monitoring, early induction of labor, cesarean delivery. Health care professionals face similar decisions with regard to what they recommend and the boundaries of safe and responsible care they should make available . Preterm Babies, Fetal Patients, and Childbearing Choices, by John D. Lantos and Diane S. Lauderdale, provides an excellent overview of the available information relevant to these questions.