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The world’s tiniest pacemaker — smaller than a grain of rice — could help save babies born with heart defects, say scientists. The miniature device can be inserted with a syringe and dissolves after it’s no longer needed. Although it can work with hearts of all sizes, the engineers who created it at Northwestern University say it is particularly well-suited to the tiny, fragile hearts of new-born babies with congenital heart defects. It measures just 1.8 millimeters in width, 3.5 millimeters in length and one millimeter in thickness, but it still delivers as much stimulation as a full-sized pacemaker. The...

J Med Ethics doi:10.1136/medethics-2011-100411 Law, ethics and medicine Paper After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? Alberto Giubilini1,2, Francesca Minerva3,4 + Author Affiliations 1Department of Philosophy, University of Milan, Milan, Italy 2Centre for Human Bioethics, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 3Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 4Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Oxford University, Oxford, UK Correspondence to Dr Francesca Minerva, CAPPE, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia; francesca.minerva@unimelb.edu.au Contributors AG and FM contributed equally to the manuscript. Received 25 November 2011 Revised 26 January 2012 Accepted 27 January 2012 Published Online...

Under the able leadership of Dr. Kass, surgeons at the Texas Children’s Hospital operated on the child while she was growing in her mother’s womb. They successfully removed the tumor and Macie was allowed to continue in her first home to full term. She was born a healthy and beautiful child. Her parents, devout Christians, openly acknowledged that they had prayer throughout this entire experience. They spoke of their little girl as having been “born twice”, referring to the first birth, when the little girl was partially removed in order for the surgeons to perform the lifesaving surgery and her...

NETHERLANDS, January 16, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Dutch paediatric neurosurgeon Rob de Jong, in collaboration with peers from several other countries, has expressed his concern at the practice in the Netherlands of carrying out euthanasia on some babies born with spina bifida in an article in the medical journal Child's Nervous System.According to a report by Radio Netherlands Worldwide, the lives of a small number of babies are terminated each year by doctors who, together with the parents, believe the infant is experiencing unbearable suffering and will continue to suffer in this way in the future.In his article "Deliberate Termination of...

WICHITA, Kan. —'Can I do this?' his mother agonized, knowing one of her newborns would not live. But for 43 hours, he was hers to cherish. She wanted to honor her son, to celebrate his life, however short. That's why she had refused an abortion, even after doctors told her that her little boy would be born without a brain. Now he was here, squirming in his blankets... The specialists she consulted offered Danielle a "selective reduction": They could abort the malformed twin. That might give her a better chance of carrying the healthy baby to term, but there was...

    Inside the neonatal intensive care unit of a Metuchen hospital, a jungle of machines surrounded a two-hour old baby gasping shallowly. Tubes from one machine sent a steady stream of air pressure down her nasal passages, preventing her tiny airways from collapsing. Intravenous pumps and catheter tubes entered through her belly button, delivering nutrients to her bloodstream and energy pulses to her heart. A screen nearby showed continuous readings of her cardiac function, respiration and oxygen saturation level.     Around her at Saint Peters University Hospital on Friday were 13 Princeton students, members of bioethics professor Peter Singer's "Ethical Choices"...