the fetuses-at-risk approach clarification of semantic and conceptual misapprehension语义和概念的fetuses-at-risk方法澄清误解.pdf

BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth BioMed Central Correspondence Open Access The fetuses-at-risk approach: Clarification of semantic and conceptual misapprehension K S Joseph Address: Perinatal Epidemiology Research Unit, Departments of Obstetrics Gynaecology and Pediatrics, Dalhousie University and the IWK Health Centre, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Email: K S Joseph - ksjoseph@dal.ca Published: 26 March 2008 Received: 30 January 2008 Accepted: 26 March 2008 BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 2008, 8:11 doi:10.1186/1471-2393-8-11 This article is available from: /1471-2393/8/11 © 2008 Joseph; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: Although proponents of the fetuses-at-risk approach describe it as a causal model that resolves various conundrums, several areas of semantic and conceptual misapprehension remain. Differences in terminology include use of denominators such as ongoing pregnancies and the need for an ad hoc correction factor in order to calculate gestational age-specific rates. Further, there is conceptual disagreement regarding the proper candidates for neonatal death and related phenomena. Perhaps the most egregious misconception is the belief that rising rates of