EVIDENCE FROM MULTICENTER NETWORKS ON THE CURRENT USE AND EFFECTIVENESS OF ANTENATAL CORTICOSTEROIDS IN LOW-BIRTH-WEIGHT INFANTS

Corticosteroid treatment of pregnant women at risk for preterm delivery enhances fetal lung maturity and improves neonatal outcomes.(1) Despite convincing evidence of these effects, a consensus has not been reached about the indications for antenatal steroids, and the frequency with which they are used remains low in some countries, including the United States. In response to this situation, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) convened a Consensus Development Conference on the Effects of Corticosteroids for Fetal Maturation on Perinatal Outcomes.(2) The following reports were prepared at the request of the panel; they describe the effects of antenatal steroid treatment on neonatal outcome from five current observational databases: those of the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) Neonatal Research Network, the Vermont-Oxford Trials Network, Ross Laboratories, and Burroughs Wellcome (BW) Co. The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the findings of these five large databases.