Perinatal Care of Infants with Congenital Birth Defects

Prenatal diagnosis has changed perinatal medicine dramatically, allowing for additional fetal monitoring, referral and counseling, delivery planning, the option of fetal intervention, and targeted postnatal management. Teams participating in the delivery room care of infants with known anomalies should be knowledgeable about specific needs and expectations but also ready for unexpected complications. A small number of neonates will need rapid access to postnatal interventions, such as surgery, but most can be stabilized with appropriate neonatal care. These targeted perinatal interventions have been shown to improve outcome in selected diagnoses.