Antenatal Dexamethasone for Early Preterm Birth in Low-resource Countries

(N Engl J Med. 2020;383:2514–2525) Antenatal glucocorticoids are a common intervention in preventing adverse outcomes associated with preterm birth. The evidence supporting this is based on trials high-resource settings, however, and 2015 trial low-resource countries found scaling up caused an increase neonatal death, stillbirth suspected maternal infection. World Health Organization (WHO) has issued guidelines restricting the use of antenatal to certain situations. This study, WHO ACTION-1 (Antenatal Corticosteroids for Improving Outcomes Preterm Newborns) trial, aimed determine levels safety efficacy dexamethasone women at risk early birth compared placebo.