Perinatal Palliative Care Birth Planning as Advance Care Planning
advance care planning; birth plan; life-limiting diagnosis; neonatal; perinatal palliative care
Purpose of Review: A significant number of pregnancies are complicated by a fetus with a life-limiting diagnosis. As diagnoses are made earlier in the pregnancy, families experience anticipatory grief and are faced with navigating goals of care for a baby that has yet to be born. With the support of the care team, families can begin to grieve, plan, and make meaningful memories during the duration of the pregnancy, the birth of their baby, and life of the child. Creating a palliative care birth plan, which expands beyond the traditional concept for delivery planning to include prenatal, perinatal, and neonatal care has become an important method for parents to process the diagnosis, for parents to document their wishes, and for members of the care team to communicate with the goal of supporting and enhancing the experience of the family. This articles reviews recent and relevant literature on the importance of birth planning and the role of perinatal palliative care when a life-limiting fetal diagnosis is made. Recent Findings: The process of birth planning is an important component of perinatal palliative care. Through this process, families can express their fears, values, hopes, and wishes. It also offers an opportunity for providers to communicate these wishes for the remainder of the pregnancy, the delivery, birth, and time afterwards. This has been demonstrated to decrease maternal stress and promote family centered care. Summary: Perinatal birth planning is an important component of perinatal palliative care when a fetus has a life-limiting diagnosis. The process of birth planning can be supportive and therapeutic as well as an important communication tool. With multiple practices and designs of perinatal palliative care programs, there are no standard tools even though important components have been identified. Ultimately, the strategies outlined here can be used as advance care planning tools.
Cortezzo D E; Ellis K; Schlegel A
Frontiers in Pediatrics
2020
Article information provided for research and reference use only. PedPalASCNET does not hold any rights over the resource listed here. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).
<a href="http://doi.org/10.3389/fped.2020.00556" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">10.3389/fped.2020.00556</a>
A Virtual Children's Hospice in Response to COVID-19: The Scottish Experience
Child; Coronavirus Infections – Therapy; Disease Outbreaks; Hospice Care – Methods; Hospices; Pneumonia; Scales; Scotland; Telemedicine – Methods; Viral – Therapy
This case report describes a pediatric hospice provider in Scotland and their experience implementing a telehospice program in response to COVID-19. Children's Hospices Across Scotland (CHAS) is the only provider of pediatric hospice care in the entire of Scotland, and we describe their experience offering pediatric telehospice. CHAS had strategically planned to implement a telehospice program, but COVID-19 accelerated the process. The organization evaluated its pediatric clinical and wrap-around hospice services and rapidly migrated them to a virtual environment. They creatively added new services to meet the unique needs of the entire family, who were caring for a child at end of life during COVID-19. CHAS's experience highlights the planning and implementing processes of telehospice with key lessons learned, while acknowledging the challenges inherent in using technology to deliver hospice care.
Ellis K; Lindley L C
Journal of Pain & Symptom Management
2020
Article information provided for research and reference use only. PedPalASCNET does not hold any rights over the resource listed here. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).
<a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2020.05.011" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2020.05.011</a>