Decision science in perinatal decision making

Abstract

Perinatologists and the families they support face decisions that are challenging in their complexity and uncertainty. Decision science studies general properties of such decisions in simplified settings far removed from a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Perinatal decision making might be informed by decision science results. It might also challenge them. Each article in this provocative collection raises questions that can only be answered by collaboration between the disciplines. These questions consider how complex, uncertain decisions can be analyzed; how different decisions makers intuitively respond to them; and what interventions could support them, with better analysis, communication, or options. I hope to have framed the questions in ways that facilitate the needed collaborations.