1. To increase awareness of the ethical issues associated with multifetal pregnancy reduction; 2. To highlight the potential ethical distinctions between singleton abortion and multifetal pregnancy reduction; 3. To explore whether different types of fetal reduction procedures present distinct ethical issues that require unique ethical justification, drawing attention to the utility of ethical a...

Multifetal pregnancy reduction (MFPR) was developed over 20 years ago to rescue higher-order multifetal pregnancies and has become a major component of improving the outcomes in infertility therapies. By definition, MFPR will always be controversial, but opinions do not follow the traditional "pro-life/pro-choice" dichotomy that has sabotaged the more generalized abortion debate. If one defines...

In the management of complex medical cases such as a multifetal pregnancy, knowledge of the ethical and legal implications is important, alongside having competent medical skills. This article reviews these principles and applies them to scenarios of multifetal pregnancy and fetal reduction. Such a discussion is not solely theoretical, but is also relevant to clinical practice. The importance o...

Imagine a hopeful mother, desperate after many failed attempts to become pregnant. She consults a fertility clinic and decides to undergo the invasive and costly process of in vitro fertilization (IVF). The procedure is more than successful—she finds herself pregnant with quadruplets. At less than five feet tall and with a petite frame, she will not be able to carry all four fetuses to term. He...

OBJECTIVE To study the pregnancy outcomes of women with a dichorionic triamniotic triplet pregnancy that was reduced to a singleton pregnancy and to review the literature. METHODS We performed a nationwide retrospective cohort study. We compared time to delivery and perinatal mortality in dichorionic triplet pregnancies reduced to singletons with ongoing dichorionic triplet pregnancies and pr...

OBJECTIVE To modify the technique of multifetal pregnancy reduction and to study the outcome of reduced twins in comparison with nonreduced twins and high-order multiple gestations. DESIGN Prospective controlled study. SETTING The Egyptian IVF-ET Center, Cairo. PATIENT(S) Seventy-five patients with high-order multiple pregnancies resulting from assisted reproduction. Controls were 40 nonr...