Critically ill neonates present clinical and ethical challenges. The deaths of these infants are often preceded by possibly life-shortening end-of-life decisions (ELD), including non-treatment decisions or pain and/or symptom relief medication. Recent empirical information about this practice is scarce. We performed a nationwide mortality follow-back survey for all deaths under the age of 1 between September 2016 and December 2017 in Flanders, Belgium. For all death cases identified through death certificates, treating physicians were sent an anonymous questionnaire about which ELDs were made. Details of the method were published elsewhere.1 Response rate was 83% (229/276). In 61% of all deceased infants, an ELD preceded death (table 1). Non-treatment decisions including withholding (12%) and withdrawing treatment (25%) are most prevalent (37%). Drugs are administered in 24% of cases, including medication with a possible (14%) and explicit life-shortening intention (10%). View this table: Table 1 Prevalence of end-of-life decisions (ELDs) …

中文翻译：

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新生儿和婴儿的临终决定：一项人口水平的死亡率跟踪研究

危重新生儿存在临床和伦理挑战。这些婴儿的死亡通常伴随着可能缩短生命的临终决定 (ELD)，包括非治疗决定或疼痛和/或症状缓解药物。最近关于这种做法的经验信息很少。我们对 2016 年 9 月至 2017 年 12 月期间在比利时法兰德斯的所有 1 岁以下死亡病例进行了全国死亡率跟踪调查。对于通过死亡证明确定的所有死亡病例，向治疗医生发送了一份关于制作 ELD 的匿名问卷。该方法的详细信息已在别处发表。1 响应率为 83% (229/276)。在所有已故婴儿中，有 61% 的 ELD 先于死亡（表 1）。包括扣留 (12%) 和停止治疗 (25%) 在内的非治疗决定最为普遍 (37%)。24% 的病例使用药物，包括可能 (14%) 和明确的缩短寿命意图 (10%) 的药物。查看此表：表 1 报废决定 (ELD) 的流行率……