Current controversies surrounding the use of repeated courses of antenatal steroids
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The use of a single dose of antenatal steroids to facilitate fetal lung maturation in the expectant management of threatened preterm birth has significantly improved the mortality and morbidity of premature infants worldwide. In some settings, the evidence for this practice has been extrapolated with self-reports of up to 6 repeated courses during the antepartum period. Concerns about the use of repeated antenatal courses prompted the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to publish a consensus statement (2000) that reaffirmed the safety and efficacy of a single course of antenatal steroids, but emphasized that there are no data to support the safety and efficacy of repeated courses. The statement cautions against the use of multiple courses outside of research protocols. Despite these recommendations, wide variations in clinical practice continue to exist. There are growing concerns about the potential deleterious effects of steroid exposure on the developing human brain. It is plausible, although not proven, that negative neurodevelopmental impact may occur, or be compounded by multiple antenatal or combined antenatal and postnatal steroid exposures. This article provides a review of the evidence to support appropriate steroid use. The physiology and pharmacology of both endogenous and exogenous steroids are outlined to enhance the clinician's understanding of these potent agents. Recommendations for targeted clinical evaluation and short- and long-term follow-up of steroid exposed infants are provided. A clear understanding of the known and potential risks and benefits of single and multiple courses of antenatal steroids is essential to prompt a critical re-examination of the safety and efficacy of repeated steroid exposure in the neonate.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.031 | 0.096 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.006 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.010 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".