Health: Born Too Soon

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Anyone who has ever cared for an extremely premature infant knows the stakes are high. Doctors can sustain a tiny baby with severe bleeding in the brain, with lungs so fragile that even the gentlest respirator can permanently damage them. But should they? "That's when neonatology becomes a difficult and ethically fraught field," says Dr. Myra Wyckoff of the University of Texas Southwestern Health Science Center in Dallas. No matter how you answer the question, surely the best solution is to find a way to reduce the number of extremely premature births from happening in the first place. --Reported by Anna Macias Aguayo/Dallas, David Bjerklie/ New York, Paul Cuadros/Chapel Hill, N.C., and Leslie Whitaker/ Chicago