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American Journal of Medical Case Reports. 2023, 11(2), 23-27
DOI: 10.12691/AJMCR-11-2-4
Case Report

Neonatal Brain Death and Current Controversies: An Illustrative Case

Lydia Leavitt1,

1University of Illinois College of Medicine, Rockford, IL, United States

Pub. Date: February 05, 2023
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Cite this paper

Lydia Leavitt. Neonatal Brain Death and Current Controversies: An Illustrative Case. American Journal of Medical Case Reports. 2023; 11(2):23-27. doi: 10.12691/AJMCR-11-2-4

Abstract

Brain death is a difficult determination, often involving legal, ethical, and moral dilemmas for care teams and families. Determination of brain death in the neonate is particularly difficult due to ambiguous and inconsistent guidelines, which have generated controversies and debates regarding several components of the brain death examination in neonates. The treatment team of a term neonate who suffered a severe hypoxic-ischemic brain injury during birth encountered numerous uncertainties as they navigated the brain death determination guidelines. This was the first time a neonatal brain death determination was performed at this 52-bed level III neonatal intensive care unit.

Keywords

neonatology, brain death, hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy

Copyright

Creative CommonsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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