Perinatal Palliative Care

This unique book is a first-of-its-kind resource that comprehensively covers each facet and challenge of providing optimal perinatal palliative care. Designed for a wide and multi-disciplinary audience, the subjects covered range from theoretical to the clinical and the practically relevant, and all chapters include case studies that provide real-world scenarios as additional teaching tools for the reader. Perinatal Palliative Care: A Clinical Guide is divided into four sections. Part One provides the foundation, covering an overview of the field, key theories that guide the practice of perinatal palliative care, and includes a discussion of perinatal ethics and parental experiences and needs upon receiving a life-limiting fetal diagnosis. Part Two delves further into practical clinical care, guiding readers through issues of obstetrical management, genetic counseling, neonatal pain management, non-pain symptom management, spiritual care, and perinatal bereavement care. Part Three discusses models of perinatal palliative care, closely examining evidence for different types of PPC programs: from hospital-based programs, to community-based care, and examines issues of interdisciplinary PPC care coordination, birth planning, and team support. Finally, Part Four concludes the book with a close look at special considerations in the field. In this section, racial, ethnic, and cultural perspectives and implications for PPC are discussed, along with lessons in how to provide PPC for a wide-range of clinical and other healthcare workers. The book closes with a look to the future of the field of perinatal palliative care. Thorough and practical, Perinatal Palliative Care: A Clinical Guide is an ideal resource for any healthcare practitioner working with these vulnerable patient populations, from palliative care specialists, to obstetricians, midwifes, neonatologists, hospice providers, nurses, doulas, social workers, chaplains, therapists, ethicists, and child life specialists.

The first resource of its kind, this authoritative handbook holistically addresses the multidimensional aspects of perinatal and neonatal palliative care. Written by an interprofessional team of renowned specialists, it is both a text and an evidencebased reference for all members of the palliative care team. This book helps individual team members forge interdisciplinary approaches to care, assess current programs, improve the quality of care, and tailor new models of care. Encompassing the perspectives of numerous multidisciplinary healthcare providers, the book underscores the unique aspects of perinatal and neonatal palliative care, with a focus on improving quality of life, as well as comfort at the end of life. It describes healthcare for neonates and pregnant mothers, care and support of the family, planning and decision-making, and effective support for grief and bereavement, addressing all palliative and neonatal care settings. Other chapters focus on the prenatal period after diagnosis of the expected baby's life-threatening condition. These include such topics as care of the mother, delivering devastating news, and advance care planning. Each chapter contains photos, figures, and/or tables and case studies with clinical implications and critical thinking questions. Also included is an extensive listing of relevant palliative care organizations. Paintings and poetry provide an artistic backdrop to the authors' inspiring words. Key Features: Addresses a growing need for specific provider resources in neonatal palliative care Covers the clinical and emotional aspects of palliative care for babies and their families Abundant resources for effective and compassionate family-centered care Case studies with critical thinking questions Accompanying video clips of healthcare and family interactions Supplemental image bank included

This textbook details the nursing care of babies with life limiting conditions and sets the context within the philosophy of internationally collaborative neonatal palliative care emphasising emotional and practical support for their families. Currently, increasing interest from nursing and medical fields regarding palliative care for babies in the antenatal and neonatal period is evident. This innovative and unique text provides experienced nurses and student nurses alike with realistic guidance in caring for babies with palliative care needs, alongside the crucial support for their families and identifies important strategies for professional self care. Nursing experts in this field collaborated to develop a reference book which supports holistic and integrated clinical practice. Parents’ experiences of what they consider helpful or not so helpful are interwoven throughout the chapter. There is currently no other textbook which offers the above information and guidance specifically for nurses and allied health professionals. As such this book will appeal to all nurses and health professionals working within the neonatal palliative care specialty in a global context.

Perinatal hospice is a novel form of care for an unborn child who has been diagnosed with a significantly life-limiting condition. In this book, Aaron D. Cobb develops a virtue-based defense of the value of perinatal hospice. He characterizes its promotion and provision as a common project of individuals, local communities, and institutions working together to provide exemplary care. Engaging with important themes from the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and Robert Adams, he shows how perinatal hospice manifests virtues crucial to meeting the needs of families in these difficult circumstances. As a work of applied virtue ethics, this book has important normative, social, and political implications for the creation and development of structured programs of care. It grounds the view that communities ought (i) to devote resources to ensure that these programs are widely available and (ii) to develop social structures that promote awareness of and accessibility to these forms of care. A Virtue-Based Defense of Perinatal Hospice will be of interest to philosophers working in bioethics and applied virtue ethics, as well as scholars in the fields of neonatology, nursing, palliative and hospice care, and counseling who are interested in the study of perinatal hospice.

'Pediatric Palliative Care', the fourth volume in the 'HPNA Palliative Nursing Manuals' series, addresses paediatric hospice, symptom management, paediatric pain, the neonatal intensive care unit, transitioning goals of care between the emergency department and intensive care unit, and grief and bereavement in paediatric palliative care.

Now updated and expanded—a gentle and comprehensive guide for parents expecting a baby with a prenatal diagnosis of a life-limiting condition. When prenatal testing reveals that a baby is expected to die before or shortly after birth, many parents choose to proceed with the pregnancy and embrace the time they are able to have with their baby, before birth as well as afterward. With compassion and support, A Gift of Time walks these parents step-by-step through this challenging and emotional experience—from receiving the diagnosis to coping with the pregnancy and making plans for the baby's birth and peaceful death. The second edition of this gentle guide offers inspiration and reassurance through the voices of numerous parents who have walked this path with their beloved baby. Their moving experiences are stories not only of grief but of joy and peace. This edition: • Expands the content substantially to incorporate new research and guidelines • Features additional vignettes from more than 160 parents about their experiences and coping strategies • Offers encouragement and more practical ideas for moving forward, including updated guidance for decision-making and ideas for embracing the time with the baby, from before birth to after death • Describes the importance of perinatal hospice and palliative care, which has continued to grow worldwide since the first edition was published, and how to access this care Drawing from parent experiences and published research, this new edition is full of practical suggestions for parents as well as health care professionals. Caring and thoughtful, A Gift of Time helps parents navigate this difficult news and the journey that follows.

Amy Kuebelbeck shares how she and her husband made the decision to forgo extreme measures to save her son Gabriel after learning at five months pregnant he suffered from hypoplastic left heart syndrome and discusses how they prepared for his inevitable death after being born.