Fluids and gases in responses to readings of the monitoring devices attached to each infant.

The operating principle and the goal are identical. These are to save all life with no regard for the quality of live saved for the cost to parents and society. The infant is given care, in most instances, without regard for the present and later burden this may impose on families and society or even the suffering of the infant itself from necessary injections and intubations. Once the infant is received in the neonatal intensive care unit, the decision has already been made to treat fully and intensively, with no regard for such long term consequences as brain damage or chronic cardiopulmonary disease. However, not all premature or deformed infants are immediately transferred to intensive care units. Two examples of frequently occurring problems in newborn infants illustrate the scope and depth of the moral issues involved in decisions of treatment or non treatment. These cases point to the usefulness of identifying short-term and long-term goals and consequences to the individual affected as well as the family and society. The first frequently occurring example of neonatal problem is the birth of very premature, underweight, underdeveloped babies as a result of spontaneous or included abortion. On one view, the gasping infant is left to die in a surgical pail. On another view, that infant is admitted to an intensive care unit. On one view, the decision to seek an abortion is an automatic death sentence for the fetus; on another view, the abortion decision is one of ending the pregnancy. On one view, the viable fetus has the right to live and the nurse, as patient advocate, has the duty to protect the fetuss life above all other values. Questions arise as two who decides, and by what criteria, either to save or not to safe the infant. Other questions arise as to what difference voluntary versus involuntary abortion makes. Related questions concern the difference socioeconomic status, race, age, and the mothers marital status play in decisions to resuscitate and treat or not to resuscitate and treat. The second example is that of the infant born with multiple defects that threaten life, such as the baby on a respirator due to respiratory difficulty with evidence pointing to the diagnosis of trisomy 18. This genetic disorder leads to severe mental retardation, failure to grow, and many other of abnormalities. Adapting the case somewhat, lets suppose one parent insist that the chief of pediatric does nothing to keep a 4-day-old-trisomy 18 infant alive. A pediatric resident points out of that another patient who has a respiratory difficulty cannot be put on a respirator because the trisomy 18 infant is using the only available machine. Without the respirator, the other infant, who is otherwise healthy, runs 50 percent risk of some brain damage. The fact is that 87 percent of trisomy 18 infants die in the first year. At this point two nurses directly responsible for the infants care interrupt. Nurse A insists that the trisomy 18 infant has every right to live and should not be allowed to die by human hands. Nurse B disagrees with nurse A and says that those beings with a meaningful life have the right to be given health care resources, that an infant with a respiratory difficulty, otherwise healthy, should not be sacrificed for the trisomy 18 infant. Nurse A supports the principle of the sanctity of life; she believe sthe trisomy 18 infant as poor prospects. If you are nurse C, what do you advice the parents and nurses A and B to do save the trisomy 18 infant or leave it to die?