JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association
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The recent abandonment of the only active US protocol for harvesting organs from anencephalic "donors" indicates both the practical and the ethical problems inherent in such an effort. Various data suggest that surprisingly few such organs would actually end up benefiting other children. ⋯ Furthermore, providing anencephalic infants with intensive care would tend to preserve the brain stem as effectively as the other organs, predictably rendering the occurrence of brain death unlikely. Thus, despite the great need for newborn organs, anencephalic infants are not as attractive a source as some had hoped.
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Although neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) have contributed to advances in neonatal survival, little is known about the epidemiology of deaths that occur after NICU discharge. To determine mortality rates following NICU discharge, we used linked birth, death, and NICU records for infants born to Georgia residents from 1980 through 1982 and who were admitted to NICUs participating in the state's perinatal care network. Infants who died after discharge (n = 120) had a median duration of NICU hospitalization of 20 days (range, 1 to 148 days) and a median birth weight of 1983 g (range, 793 to 5159 g). ⋯ This rate is more than five times the overall postneonatal mortality rate for Georgia from 1980 to 1982. The most common causes of death were congenital heart disease (23%), sudden infant death syndrome (21%), and infection (13%). Demographic characteristics commonly associated with infant mortality were not strongly associated with the mortality following NICU discharge.