Useless Perinatal Therapies

Abstract

With respect to Professor Bengt Robertson whose research studies were very instrumental in the development of one of the most important and evidence-based therapies in perinatal medicine, namely surfactant therapy, I thought it might be appropriate to review some useless or harmful perinatal therapies. Although the term ‘neonatology’ has only been in existence for about 50 years, care of the newborn in the 19th century was largely provided by nurses and obstetricians. As an example, Pierre Budin, a Parisian obstetrician, was very aware of the importance of keeping low birth weight babies warm. More recently however, a number of useless or harmful practices were adopted by those caring for pregnant women and their babies. These included uncontrolled oxygen supplementation, inadequate temperature control, withholding feeds, and various drugs such as thalidomide, chloramphenicol, hexachlorophene, sodium bicarbonate, Epsom salts, benzyl alcohol, thyrotrophin-releasing hormone and corticosteroids. Even in the modern age, inappropriate therapies have been introduced on the basis of short-term beneficial outcomes without longer-term evaluation. Sometimes we are slow to learn the lessons of the past.