As medical students and residents, we have all grappled with patient death and dying at some point in our training. These experiences often remain with us, informing our clinical practice, our personal wellbeing, and the ways in which we build…
Background/Aims There is a paucity of literature on the impact of baby loss experiences on family and staff. This study aimed to explore existing support available to families and staff in a UK hospital for first trimester miscarriage, as well as…
Purpose: Pediatric palliative care is a rapidly developing multidisciplinary approach that supports children with life-limiting conditions and their families. However, there is limited evidence on how to effectively support bereaved parents and…
Aims and objectives: To explore culturally and linguistically diverse men's experiences of support after perinatal death, including barriers and facilitators to support and how healthcare providers, systems and policies can best support families.…
Children's nurses report feeling unprepared when caring for children with life-limiting conditions and their families, while the value of including service users in the provision of nursing education is increasingly recognised. This small-scale…
Following an unexpected pediatric death, survivors undergo unique trauma. Medical examiners (MEs) evaluate most of these deaths. We evaluated the bereavement support available to survivors in the Chicagoland area following a pediatric death. We had…
Two separate bodies of literature point to the link between family bereavement and cardiovascular health and between sleep quality and cardiovascular outcomes. However, less is known about the joint influence of family bereavement and sleep quality…
Abstract Perinatal loss is a devastating event for any mother. What is often overlooked is a mothers continued ability to lactate following the death of her child. Donor breast milk is a commodity highly sought after given its value for feeding sick…
Abstract Background: The music therapy HeartSong intervention pairs newborn infant heartbeats with parents' Song of Kin. Formal evidence on professional and personal caregiver perspectives of this intervention is lacking. Purpose: This survey study…
This is the intertwined story of three unique individuals—each of us parents, researchers, givers and takers—who met and changed each other’s lives, whilst simultaneously struggling to comprehend and make meaning out of our own personal losses. After…
Abstract This study aims to evaluate the appropriateness of end-of-life care for children with genetic and congenital conditions. This is a decedent cohort study. We used 6 linked, Belgian, routinely collected, population-level databases containing…
BACKGROUND: Legacy building interventions are used in pediatric healthcare settings to help families cope with difficult healthcare experiences and typically reserved for intentional use at or near the end of a child's life. However, little is known…
Siblings of children with palliative care needs often suffer feelings of being neglected, and their needs for information and involvement are frequently unmet. This study aims to explore the experiences and feelings of siblings of children with…
BACKGROUND: Neonatal death is often preceded by end-of-life medical decisions. This study aimed to determine whether the context of death - after a decision of withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment (WWLST) or despite maximum care - was…
Family care is essential to pediatric nursing practice, as the entire family is affected by childhood illness. However, little is known about art making for therapeutic purposes and how art is used to better understand families' experiences. Our…
Abstract Context: Bereavement is an individuated, nuanced experience, and its expression is different for each parent who has cared for a dying child. Evidence highlights support is valuable to navigate this loss. Objectives: To evaluate a…
Abstract The French national centre of palliative and end-of-life care (Centre national des soins palliatifs et de la fin de vie) offers each year an updated selection of nearly 200 children's books for helping adults who accompany children who are…
This exploratory study targets a significant gap in the lactation and bereavement literature by exploring bereaved fathers' experiences, perspectives and practices in relation to their partner's lactation after stillbirth, neonatal or infant death.…
Background: Stillbirth and neonatal death are devastating pregnancy outcomes with long-lasting psychosocial consequences for parents and families, and wide-ranging economic impacts on health systems and society. It is essential that parents and…
AIM: Parents are increasingly confronted with loss during their child's end of life. Healthcare professionals struggle with parental responses to loss. This study aimed to understand parental coping with grief during their child's end of life.…
OBJECTIVES: The loss of a child is a devastating event, and bereaved parents often suffer intense and long-lasting grief reactions and are at risk for psychological symptoms. More knowledge about how parents cope with grief may improve the support to…
Context: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has impacted most elements of daily life, including the provision of support after a child's death and the experience of parental bereavement.Objectives: This study aims to examine ways in which COVID-19…
CONTEXT: The death of a child from cancer is a devastating event, placing bereaved parents at risk for both physical and psychosocial morbidities. Despite growing awareness of these outcomes and increased hospital-based support, bereaved parents…
In high-mortality contexts, research examining the effects of child mortality has focused almost exclusively on couples' fertility responses while overlooking other potential family consequences. Using nationally representative survey data from 13…
To investigate any association between expressions of parents' continuing bond with their stillborn baby and bereavement adaptation. Continuing bonds theory suggests that bereaved parents adapt to the loss of their child by sharing and transforming…
Background Memory making is the process of creating mementos of a child with a life-limiting condition, who may be at or near end of life, providing a tangible and visual connection to the child who has died. Acorns memory making work already…
Background and Aims: Transition to palliative care (PC) is a critical aspect of pediatric oncology requiring a high level of communication skills from doctors, which could be best judged by parents of children died in cancer. Our aim was to explore…
Introduction: The experience of bereavement is associated with severe physical, psychological, social and spiritual reactions in the parents of children with cancer. Because of that, the families of these children need to receive bereavement…
Analysis of in-depth qualitative interviews with 20 bereaved parents and 11 service providers revealed a more holistic conceptualization of the bereavement process for parents who have lost a child. Holistic ?states? included: ?helplessness prior to…
Background: Bereaved parents value receiving support from their children's health care teams. Pediatric residents are important members of the teams that care for children at end of life and can play a meaningful role in communication with bereaved…
Background: How children die in pediatric intensive care units (PICUs) has been poorly described, and support for parents during this traumatic experience could be improved. Better information on perceptible signs of the end of life (EOL) in children…
INTRODUCTION: The loss of a child in a family is a painful experience. Despite this, most studies focus on the grieving experience of parents. Our understanding of sibling bereavement therefore remains underexplored. This study aims to address this…
This study aimed to identify parental needs for pediatric palliative care and obtain their opinions on developing pediatric palliative care in South Korea. This qualitative research design used inductive and deductive methods. The data were collected…
Background and Aims: Grief in parents has been described as a very intense long-lasting experience, characterized by deep sadness, and social isolation, therefore, the recommendation of scientific societies in pediatrics is to provide bereavement…
Parents that accompany their children in end-of-life care until death go through a devastating, complex and vulnerable situation, which is experienced in a unique way and with individual needs, given the specificity of the palliative care setting in…
Background The origins of the word condolence stem from Latin roots: com ‘together,” and dolere, “to grieve”. Parents grieving the death of their child benefit from condoling words and actions of those around them. Grieving the death of a child…
Background/aims: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in global mass bereavement; in the UK alone there have been 140,000 deaths to date, with a disproportionate impact on Black, Asian or minoritized ethnic (BME) communities. Voluntary and community…
BACKGROUND: Paediatric palliative care provides supportive care to children with life-threatening or life-limiting illnesses throughout the disease trajectory. Up to 42% of children receiving palliative care in Canada will die within a freestanding…
