Prevention of Embryonic, Fetal, and Perinatal Disease

edited by Robert L. Brent and Maureen I. Harris. xi + 411 pages, illustrated. Fogarty International Center Series on Preventive Medicine, Volume 3, DHEW Publication No. (NIH) 76–853, for sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. 1976. $8.20

Thomas E. Frothingham Department of Pediatrics Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710

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This is a substantial, 400-page, collection of 17 monographs that have been prepared by eminent clinical and biomedical scientists from around the country. Most of the authors are in departments of maternal and child health, pediatrics, obstetrics, or epidemiology in schools of either public health or medicine. The monographs provide well-documented summaries of the enormous number of real or imagined possibilities for damaging a person during the period from before conception until after the newborn period. The major strength of the effort is its multi-disciplinary nature involving aspects that seldom are found together in a single publication. Thus, there are chapters dealing with such diverse subjects as the regionalization of perinatal care, and the current state of the art and science relating to the effect on the unborn of drugs, environmentally dispersed agents, genetic misfortunes, and socioeconomic disarray. There is a chapter on legislative and legal aspects.

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