Providing Comfort or Prolonging Death for a Baby with “Dead Gut Syndrome”?

Abstract

The patient was born at 29 weeks gestation. There was a prenatal diagnosis that the child's small intestine had developed outside of the abdominal cavity. The length of gestation had made the initial prognosis good. But after birth, surgery to place the intestine back into the abdominal cavity found that the baby actually had very little small intestine and a diagnosis of “dead gut syndrome” was made. The amount of small intestine was not compatible with survival. The transplant service saw the baby twice and each time said the baby's profile did not meet the transplant protocol.