Overtreatment of Neonates

To the Editor.— Dr William Silverman's recent article entitled "Overtreatment of Neonates? A Personal Retrospective"1 is a thoughtful and provocative addition to the debate on the method to decide how much treatment is appropriate for critically ill and tiny babies. He basically believes that parents should be the decision makers and that the appropriate decision is the withholding of aggressive treatments from infants at the threshold of viability. He adds his voice to others who would criticize the paternalistic physicians who ignore the values of families and merely fulfill their own "rescue fantasies (New York Times.