The strategy of fetal risk management

Current concepts of perinatal intensive care seem to place disproportionate emphasis on sophisticated electronic and biochemical techniques. There is a need for a balanced approach to the strategy of fetal risk management: the planning, the timing, and the decision making. Ten basic principles underlying good perinatal care are presented. All pregnancies should be assumed to be at risk until it can be proved otherwise. Ideally, no fetus should be submitted to the acknowledged risks of labor until one has some reasonably precise information of the extent to which that fetus is at risk before labor begins. A plea is made for greater communication between the attending physician and those physicians who may well be involved with the care of the infant during and after labor and delivery.