Compassion and Community in Perinatal Palliative Care: Understanding the Necessity of the Patient Perspective Through Narrative Illustration

J Palliat Care. 2019 Jul;34(3):160-163. doi: 10.1177/0825859719827020. Epub 2019 Feb 18.

Abstract

Advancing technology in reproductive medicine has led to more frequent perinatal diagnoses of fatal or life-limiting anomaly. For those parents who choose to continue pregnancies while facing such a diagnosis, compassionate and communal perinatal palliative care provides beneficial physical and psycho-socio-emotional support for these families, so that they may preserve and acknowledge the relationship with their child, no matter how brief his/her life.

Keywords: community; compassion; empathy; fetal anomaly; life-limiting diagnosis; narrative; perinatal palliative care.

MeSH terms

  • Empathy*
  • Female
  • Fetal Diseases / mortality*
  • Humans
  • Infant, Newborn
  • Male
  • Narration
  • Palliative Care / psychology*
  • Pregnancy
  • Professional-Family Relations*