“Most of these kids are conceived to women with serious problems (drugs and such). The vast majority are on public assistance. The cost is well over a million, each. Instead of focusing resources on attaining a lower gestational threshold, we’d help more kids live better lives with less money if we focused upon better prenatal care. “
Sounds like the mothers need to be in a Nervous Hospital while pregnant so they can’t do drugs and get prenatal care. Yea I know the dems will bellyache about that but it’s what must be done.
What some of these kids go through is nothing short of a horror in which death becomes merciful. My wife has done what she could over the years, from cooling brains, to cutting down ambient noise, to music, getting colostrum in them as soon as possible, to introducing the skin microbiome from the mother, to improved IV systems, to better protocols for managing bilirubin, to developing parent education systems for when these damaged kids go home...
But there are children born with conditions incompatible with life but for "technology" that can keep the body going if only for a while but sometimes indefinitely. But what is the cost to the family if they're so committed to one damaged kid that they can't have others without facing both physical and financial ruin? Our society has for the most part lost efficacy in those institutions (such as churches) who used to organize voluntary assistance.
G_d made us to make free choices, and yet some seem so far beyond our capacity that they can't be made ultimately just. Yet choices do have to be made, and some are time sensitive. The best outcomes are those in which we can read what the patient wants (and yes, sometimes even an infant does let us know), but that isn't always possible. It is a system that ends up on legal autopilot.