Evaluating decision regret after extremely preterm birth.

Objectives: Little is known about decision regret following extremely premature birth. We assessed decision regret in women who delivered an extremely premature infant, comparing decision regret scores based on resuscitation decision.

Methods: Electronic survey assessment of decision regret using a validated tool included women who delivered at 22-25 completed weeks of gestation at two hospitals 2004-2019.

Two-Year Outcomes of Umbilical Cord Milking in Nonvigorous Infants: A Secondary Analysis of the MINVI Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Compared with early cord clamping (ECC), umbilical cord milking (UCM) reduces delivery room cardiorespiratory support, hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, and therapeutic hypothermia in nonvigorous near-term and full-term infants. However, UCM postdischarge outcomes are not known.

Objective: To determine the 2-year outcomes of children randomized to UCM or ECC at birth in the Milking in Nonvigorous Infants (MINVI) trial.

The Ethics and Practice of Periviability Care.

Since the 1960s, the gestational age at which premature infants typically survive has decreased by approximately one week per decade [...

Umbilical Cord Milking Versus Delayed Cord Clamping in Infants 28 to 32 Weeks: A Randomized Trial.

Objectives: To determine whether rate of severe intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) or death among preterm infants receiving placental transfusion with UCM is noninferior to delayed cord clamping (DCC).

Methods: Noninferiority randomized controlled trial comparing UCM versus DCC in preterm infants born 28 to 32 weeks recruited between June 2017 through September 2022 from 19 university and private medical centers in 4 countries. The primary outcome was Grade III/IV IVH or death evaluated at a 1% noninferiority margin.

Promoting children's rights to health and well-being in the United States.

The United States has a highly sophisticated pediatric healthcare system and spends more than any other country per capita on children's healthcare. However, not all children have access to needed and affordable health care and the life expectancy and health outcomes of children in the country are worse than in any other industrialized nation. These nations typically offer universal healthcare for children as part of a robust recognition of a children's rights framework.

Overdiagnosis of Newborn Hyperbilirubinemia: A Natural Experiment in Quality Improvement Fundamentals.

Unlabelled: Two hospitals noted increased newborn hyperbilirubinemia coinciding with an undisclosed total serum bilirubin (TSB) assay change. Clinicians rapidly applied quality improvement methodologies to ascertain increased jaundice evaluations, readmissions, and possible safety issues.

Methods: In January 2020, 2 hospitals (A and B) transitioned to a new method of measuring TSB using a new clinical chemistry analyzer (Siemens Atellica CH), which measured TSB by vanadate oxidase assay instead of the previous diazo assay.

Discontinuation of Car Seat Tolerance Screening and Postdischarge Adverse Outcomes in Infants Born Preterm.

Objective: To study the association between discontinuing predischarge car seat tolerance screening (CSTS) with 30-day postdischarge adverse outcomes in infants born preterm.

Study Design: Retrospective cohort study involving all infants born preterm from 2010 through 2021 who survived to discharge to home in a 14-hospital integrated health care system. The exposure was discontinuation of CSTS.

Extremely premature birth bioethical decision-making supported by dialogics and pragmatism.

Moral values in healthcare range widely between interest groups and are principally subjective. Disagreements diminish dialogue and marginalize alternative viewpoints. Extremely premature births exemplify how discord becomes unproductive when conflicts of interest, cultural misunderstanding, constrained evidence review, and peculiar hierarchy compete without the balance of objective standards of reason.

The Triple Aim Quality Improvement Gold Standard Illustrated as Extremely Premature Infant Care.

Objectives: The Triple Aim is widely regarded as the quality improvement gold standard that enhances population health, lowers costs, and betters individual care. There have been no large-scale, sustained demonstrations of such improvement in healthcare. Illustrating the Triple Aim using relevant extremely premature infant outcomes might highlight interwoven proficiency and efficiency complexities that impede sustained value progress.

Change in neurodevelopmental outcomes for extremely premature infants over time: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objective: Survival rates of extremely premature infants are rising, but changes in neurodevelopmental impairment (NDI) rates are unclear. Our objective was to perform a systematic review of intrainstitutional variability of NDI over time.

Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis.

Umbilical cord milking in nonvigorous infants: a cluster-randomized crossover trial.

Background: Delayed cord clamping and umbilical cord milking provide placental transfusion to vigorous newborns. Delayed cord clamping in nonvigorous newborns may not be provided owing to a perceived need for immediate resuscitation. Umbilical cord milking is an alternative, as it can be performed more quickly than delayed cord clamping and may confer similar benefits.

Do small baby units improve extremely premature infant outcomes?

Increasing numbers of neonatal intensive care units have formed small baby units or small baby teams with the intention to optimize care of extremely premature infants. Considerable time, energy, and resources are required to develop and sustain complex quality improvement constructs, so legitimate questions about effectiveness, unintended consequences, and lost opportunity costs warrant scrutiny. The small baby unit literature is diminutive.

Perinatal Outcomes of Subjects Enrolled in a Multicenter Trial with a Waiver of Antenatal Consent.

Objective: This study aimed to determine whether outcomes differed between infants enrolled in the PREMOD2 trial and those otherwise eligible but not enrolled, and whether the use of waiver effected these differences.

Study Design: The multicenter PREMOD2 (PREmature infants receiving Milking Or Delayed cord clamping) trial was approved for waiver of antenatal consent by six of the nine sites institutional review boards, while three sites exclusively used antenatal consent. Every randomized subject delivered at a site with a waiver of consent was approached for postnatal consent to allow for data collection.

Continued improvement in morbidity reduction in extremely premature infants.

Objective: Provide a progress report updating our long-term quality improvement collaboration focused on major morbidity reduction in extremely premature infants 23-27 weeks.

Methods: 10 Vermont Oxford Network (VON) neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) (the POD) sustained a structured alliance: (A) face-to-face meetings, site visits and teleconferences, (B) transparent process and outcomes sharing, (C) utilisation of evidence-based potentially better practice toolkits, (D) family integration and (E) benchmarking via a composite mortality-morbidity score (Benefit Metric). Morbidity-specific toolkits were employed variably by each NICU according to local priorities.

Prolonged Tracheal Intubation and the Association Between Patent Ductus Arteriosus and Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia: A Secondary Analysis of the PDA-TOLERATE trial.

In the PDA-TOLERATE trial, persistent (even for several weeks) moderate to large patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) was not associated with an increased risk of BPD when the infant required <10 days of intubation. However, in infants requiring intubation for ≥10 days, prolonged PDA exposure (≥11 days) was associated with an increased risk of moderate/severe BPD.

Lack of Equipoise in the PDA-TOLERATE Trial: A Comparison of Eligible Infants Enrolled in the Trial and Those Treated Outside the Trial.

The PDA: TO LEave it alone or Respond And Treat Early trial compared the effects of 2 strategies for treatment of patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) in infants <28 weeks of gestation; however 137 potentially eligible infants were not recruited and received treatment of their PDA outside the PDA-TOLERATE trial due to "lack-of-physician-equipoise" (LPE). Despite being less mature and needing more respiratory support, infants with LPE had lower rates of mortality than enrolled infants. Infants with LPE treated before day 6 had lower rates of late respiratory morbidity than infants with LPE treated ≥day 6.

Sustained quality improvement collaboration and composite morbidity reduction in extremely low gestational age newborns.

Aim: Continuous quality improvement has failed to consistently reduce morbidities in extremely low gestational age newborns 23-27 weeks. 10 Vermont Oxford Network NICUs describe a novel, sustained collaboration for progress.

Methods: We emphasised a) commitment to inter-NICU trust with face-to-face meetings, site visits, teleconferences, scrutiny of quality improvement methodology, b) transparent process and outcomes sharing, c) evidence-based formulation of an orchestrated testing matrix to select potentially better practices, d) family integration, e) benchmarking with a composite mortality-morbidity score (Benefit Metric).

Comparative effectiveness of drugs used to constrict the patent ductus arteriosus: a secondary analysis of the PDA-TOLERATE trial (NCT01958320).

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of drugs used to constrict patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) in newborns < 28 weeks.

Methods: We performed a secondary analysis of the multi-center PDA-TOLERATE trial (NCT01958320). Infants with moderate-to-large PDAs were randomized 1:1 at 8.

Aletheia-20 unconcealed observations from quality improvement and evidence-based medicine.

Quality improvement (QI) and evidence-based medicine (EBM) activities ideally generate value (benefit/cost). Physicians and hospitals vary in ability to demonstrate efficiency despite common methodology available to all. Based upon our 60-some years of combined QI and EBM experience, we suggest reasoned consideration of meta-cognition-thinking about thinking.

PDA-TOLERATE Trial: An Exploratory Randomized Controlled Trial of Treatment of Moderate-to-Large Patent Ductus Arteriosus at 1 Week of Age.

Objective: To compare early routine pharmacologic treatment of moderate-to-large patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) at the end of week 1 with a conservative approach that requires prespecified respiratory and hemodynamic criteria before treatment can be given.

Study Design: A total of 202 neonates of <28 weeks of gestation age (mean, 25.8 ± 1.