Fifty years ago the issue of prematurity rose to the forefront of the national conscious with the brief life of Patrick Bouvier Kennedy. Born at 35 weeks, a late-term preemie who’d likely have only the briefest of NICU stints today, the first child born to a sitting U.S. president since 1893 spurred the burgeoning field of neonatology after his death at less than two days old.

This week the New York Times published an op-ed on the ethics of the heroic life-sustaining measures now available to infants at increasingly younger gestational ages. It should not surprise you that this piece sent the preemie community into a tizzy. Continue reading →