Congratulations to Katherine Carroll (ANU) and team for their new publication in the Sociology of Health and Illness journal. The article explores a difficult area of neonatal medicine: deciding upon a care trajectory for the extremely premature infant born into the ‘grey zone of viability’ between 22 and 24 weeks of gestation. Clinical guidelines often call for different care trajectories to be evenly presented in clinical consultations for parental consideration. However, is that what parents really need and how might this be done in practice?

After collaborative analyses with practising clinicians of 25 antenatal consultations between neonatologists and expectant parents in one Midwestern hospital in the United States of America, the research team found that the ‘comfort care’ trajectory featured minimally in and was often marginalised by neonatologists’ language. Rather than provide lengthy descriptions of each care trajectory, the researchers argue it is important for neonatologists to engage in a form of reflexive communicational labour, including greeting parents with openness and attuning to the information needs of each family. Although it is a fraught and confronting topic, promoting antenatal shared decision-making guided by parents’ wishes about preferred care trajectories contributes to more open and tailored communication between neonatologists and expectant parents.

More information: Katherine Carroll, Megan Thorvilson, Christopher Collura (2024) 'Positioning comfort measures in antenatal counselling for periviable infants' Sociology of Health and Illness. Online First.