Current controversies in neonatal resuscitation

The goal of neonatal bioethics is to help clinicians navigate difficult decisions that arise every day in the care of critically ill newborns. Over the last few decades, there have been vigorous discussions of numerous ethical issues. For some, we have worked out a tentative societal agreement for appropriate responses. Others remain contentious and controversial. They evoke moral distress. In this article, we address some of these unresolved issues including the changing landscape of duration and viability threshold for newborn resuscitation, the issue of borderline of viability and the ethical controversies that arise when each center has its own policies, and some of the challenges that arise in Fetal Care Centers (FCC). Finally, we propose a generalizable model of shared decision making.