In caring for sickest babies, doctors now tap parents for tough calls

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently advised that parents should be given wide latitude in deciding how aggressive doctors should be with treatment in cases where their child is at high risk of death or serious disability. In practice, this means parents willing to raise a child with severe disabilities might elect to pursue more aggressive care than parents who do not want to take on that risk. That's a big change. When Benitz first started at Stanford in 1973, doctors were considered the absolute authorities in life-and-death decisions, he says. They consulted with colleagues and decided how much intensive care to give, based on what they thought was the likeliest outcome. Often these doctors didn't even tell the parents about the decision before taking action.