23 Week Babies: The Price Of Life
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Synopsis
Only one in a hundred babies born at 23 weeks will survive without disability. Fewer than ten per cent leave hospital alive
Every year, thousands of babies are born in British hospitals on the borderline of what doctors call ‘viability’. Before the 25th week of pregnancy (up to four months early), they can measure less than six inches and weigh a few hundred grams. They go straight on to ventilators and are injected with drugs and nutrients to stay alive. Only one in a hundred babies born at 23 weeks will survive without disability. Fewer than ten per cent leave hospital alive. This documentary tells the heart-rending stories of these children and investigates the harrowing ethical decisions that are made, featuring unprecedented access to the doctors and parents as they are forced to decide whether treatment should be continued or whether death is preferable. Should treatment continue if it only brings more pain and suffering? Or is it fundamentally wrong to deny medicine to any human being that retains a spark of life? But health care managers worry that the NHS is spending more and more money, on less and less benefit. More often than not the babies die in the first years of life, or they survive severely disabled, being a burden on both their parents and siblings and on the NHS that is forced to support them. Is keeping them alive really the best use of our nation’s resources?
Duration
1 x 60'
Definition
SD
Genre
Factual
Subgenre
Royal
Producer
BBC PRODUCTIONS
Awards
Nominated for Grierson Award 2011 - deluxe 142 Best Documentary on a Contemporary Theme - Domestic