Antenatal invasive therapy

Abstract

The value of fetal therapy relates to the balance of benefit versus risk taking into account alternatives such as post-natal therapy. Since this balance is also determined by the natural history and prognosis of a given condition, the fact that any condition diagnosed prenatally has a worse prognosis than the same condition diagnosed post-natally will be described. On this basis we classify the interventions into those that are clearly of benefit in the right cases, those that are possible now but are still being assessed and other experimental ideas.