Viable at 22 Weeks: Just How Low Can Preemies Go?

Babymaking is easy when everything goes right. All it takes is a single—decidedly agreeable—act and the rest runs on autopilot for the next nine months. But it’s the “everything goes right” part that is the rub, because in too many cases, at least one thing goes wrong. In the U.S., about 18,000 times per year, that one thing is prematurity. The outlook has gotten better for premature babies over the last half century. In 1960, the survival rate for a 3.3 lb (1,500 gm) premie was just 28%. By 2010 it was 78%. But everything depends on the calendar: Babies born at, say, 27 weeks—out of the normal 40-week gestation period—have a far easier go than those born at 26 weeks, whose odds in turn are better than those at 25 or 24. The cutoff, the no-go zone, has long been considered 22 weeks. At that age and earlier, there’s just not enough baby to save. But now, it seems, that may have changed. A study just released in the New England Journal of Medicine is shaking the preemie community with the surprising findings that in a small but significant number of cases, the 22-week limit may be no limit at all. The announcement raises all manner of new questions about how aggressively to treat the littlest infants, how much care is too much—and how much is suddenly not enough. It also, unavoidably, has a lot of people asking how an even slightly lower age of viability affects the fraught debate over abortion. The new research, led by epid...
Source: TIME: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized neonatal intensive care unit NICU Pediatrics Preemies Premature Babies Source Type: news