Antenatal corticosteroids to reduce preterm deaths in low-income settings

Publish Date: August 2014
Author: Joy E. Lawn, Joel Sergre, Pierre Barker, Jeffrey Smith, Irene De La Torre, and William Stones
Language: English

The Lancet Global Health published an MCHIP co-authored letter titled “Antenatal corticosteroids to reduce preterm deaths in low-income settings.”

The letter responds to an article by Kishwar Azad and Anthony Costello in the April 2014 edition of The Lancet Global Health titled “Extreme caution is needed before scale-up of antenatal corticosteroids to reduce preterm deaths in low-income settings.” The letter raises objections to the authors’ three concerns about antenatal corticosteroid use in poor populations and points out that evidence strongly supports the use of a single, short course of corticosteroids for women at risk of preterm birth in hospitals in all countries, not just high-income countries.

To read the letter, click here.