A PreNatal/Fetal Diagnosis
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Perinatal palliative care: Being able to do intensive care and palliative care simultaneously is possible.
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A prenatal diagnosis of heterotaxy: how palliative care helped parents continue the pregnancy and manage uncertainty
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“Advice to my past self at the 20-week ultrasound: It’s your decision at the end of the day.”
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A Physician defines Perinatal Palliative Care; and how families get referred.
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Trisomy 13 and 18 as an example of some parents now asking, “What if we did try to push a little further?”
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A life-limiting fetal diagnosis: Trisomy 18 as an example of supporting parents’ choices.
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Perinatal palliative care: “Parents can hold that [uncertainty] space better than we clinicians do.”
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The uncertainty of fetal diagnosis is dramatic. We don’t box parents into a decision.
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A life-limiting fetal diagnosis: Conversations about terminating the pregnancy; Palliative care as a bridge to maternal fetal medicine.
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A life-limiting fetal diagnosis: Empowering but not burdening the parents as decision-makers.
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Medical Uncertainty: What the data says vs. what is going to happen with this particular baby.
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An MD on addressing a parent’s fear of making the wrong decision for their child.
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Shared Decision-Making: When parents ask the doctor for a recommendation.
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Potential pathways for unborn babies with a life-limiting fetal condition: a perinatal palliative care doctor describes
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Most people adapt: “Parents craft their story whether their baby lives or dies based on who they’ve become after they’ve birthed this child.”
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Fear of regret: "I have a lot of compassion for people making these decisions "
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A diagnosis in-utero of holoprosencephaly.
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Considering the option of terminating the pregnancy: “We felt we wanted to let this little life be whatever God wanted it to be.”
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Decision-making about quality of life, with no judgement: “The medical field has advancements that our ethics haven’t quite caught up with.”
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Perinatal palliative care “got to know us and really heard our hearts. They counseled us through the birth practices.”
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“We didn’t think we would leave the hospital [following his birth].”
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“It was very weird to have a newborn with a DNR paper on our fridge. . . It was one of the most uncertain times we could ever be in as humans.”
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