ANTENATAL INVASIVE THERAPY

The value of fetal therapy relates to the balance of benefit versus ri sk taking into account alternatives such as post-natal therapy. Since this balance is also determined by the natural history and prognosis o f a given condition, the fact that any condition diagnosed prenatally has a worse prognosis than the same condition diagnosed post-natally w ill be described. On this basis we classify the interventions into tho se that are clearly of benefit in the right cases, those that are poss ible now but are still being assessed and other experimental ideas.