האם ארה"ב צריכה להקצות כ"כ הרבה משאבים להצלת הפגים?

לכתבה המקורית 

Given that it's one of the country's outstanding medical successes, it should, says U.S. News & World Report's health columnist Bernadine Healy. Other countries' lower infant-mortality rates in the World Health Organization's tables are often used to shame the U.S.'s health-care system. But those numbers hide the greater effort the U.S. takes to save the life of preterm babies, those born 6 to 20 weeks before they are due.

Roughly a quarter of all the country's spending on pediatric hospitalization goes to specialist hospital units and innovative life-support systems for newborn babies, says Dr. Healy. Billie Lou Short, director of the neonatal intensive-care unit at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., says 40 years ago few two-pound babies stood a chance of survival. Now, 95% of them survive.

The U.S.'s infant-mortality rate seems higher than other countries in part because it counts the death of every baby that shows a sign of life, even for a moment. Many developed countries don't count some premature babies' deaths in World Health Organization statistics, Dr. Healy says. When a recent study of mortality risk of babies in Canada and the U.S. factored in the weight of the babies that died or survived, it found that the countries' mortality risks were the same.

Some have said that the money spent on intensive-care units could be more usefully spent on preventative programs. Dr. Healy agrees that it is important to highlight the risk factors that lead to problem pregnancies: smoking, substance abuse and middle-aged or teenage mothers.

But those education programs won't prevent another source of preterm babies. The number of twins being born has doubled since 1980, thanks largely to the use of fertility drugs. Half of twin babies born are premature and need intensive care, says Dr. Healy.