NONFICTION - Jan. 13, 1991

THE BABY DOCTORS: Probing the Limits of Fetal Medicine by Gina Kolata (Delacorte Press: $18.95; 213 pp.). This is a troubling and a troublesome book. Troubling for its subject: a handful of doctors, all men, pioneers in the field of fetal medicine, who are, depending on your point of view, either saviors or arrogant men attempting to manipulate nature through experimental, invasive procedures that might make a doomed fetus into a viable baby. New York Times medical writer Gina Kolata looks at a wide range of newly developed procedures, from elective termination of fetuses in a multiple pregnancy to treatments inside and outside the womb. She draws a perceptive picture of the men who are attracted to this specialty--renegade, ambitious, often egocentric men who think they can bend tragic reality to their will. They can, often enough to make their offers seductive to distraught parents. And if they soften the edges of their statistics just a bit, to convince an edgy patient, they do so believing that they are helping a hesitant populace catch up with what the latest medical technology has to offer.

Medical writers ideally act as go-betweens, translating medical realities into lay concepts, but Kolata jarringly inserts herself in her text, giving her first-person reaction to a patient’s ordeal. What the field of fetal medicine needs is objective coverage, not advocacy.