What is it about?

Children’s hospices provide palliative care to children and their families. In recent years, more and more life shortening conditions are found in pregnancy. This paper explores how children’s hospices support families in the perinatal period - this includes pregnancy, birth and the first few weeks after delivery.

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Why is it important?

Children’s palliative care is changing. Advances in antenatal testing and diagnostics mean that’s there is more opportunity than ever before to support families with babies who have a life shortening illness. We know little about the role of hospices in providing perinatal palliative care. This paper outlines the level of care provided by children’s hospices, who they work with and their role in advance care planning.

Perspectives

As a hospice practitioner, I’m really passionate about child focused, family centred palliative care. Our services need to be relevant to families and the professionals who refer them. This research highlights the important work that hospices do, as well as sharing best practice in the field, allowing other services to learn from others, which ultimately enhances care for babies and their families.

Dr Michael J Tatterton
University of Bradford

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: The role of children's hospices in perinatal palliative care and advance care planning: The results of a national British survey, Journal of Nursing Scholarship, December 2022, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/jnu.12866.
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