This volume is based on presentations at the fifth course on perinatal medicine held in the International School of Medical Sciences at the Ettore Majorana Centre for Scientific Culture in Erice, Sicily, in March 1996. It has had a prolonged gestation, but the presentations have been updated and thus the book will benefit perinatologists internationally.

The introductory lecture, by philosopher Donald Evans, is of great interest, discussing the issues which all those involved in reproductive medicine, in its widest sense, are dealing with all the time but seldom think about or put in...

Everyone involved in obstetric practice at the present time will be well aware oft he complexities of drug interactions in the mother and fetus, and newborn infant.

Everyone involved in obstetric practice at the present time will be well aware of the complexities of drug interactions in the mother and fetus, and in the newborn baby. Perhaps themost spectacular manifestations of these drug interactions are those that result in teratogenic effects, but the implications of drug therapy generally in pregnancy range far wider than the hazards of inducing fetal malformation. It must also be realised that there are hazards in withholding some therapeutic agents from pregnant women, and these hazards have to be weighed against the dangers of indis criminate drug...