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Bereaved
Parents Need
Support
From Caregivers
Bereaved
Parents Need
NEW
YORK (Reuters Health) - Parents experiencing the loss of a newborn
want continued contact with the child's healthcare professionals,
study findings suggest, but they may need proactive help to receive
the counseling they need.
``The death
of a child is an exceptionally painful loss to accept and live
with,'' Dr. Hazel McHaffie, of the University of Edinburgh in
Scotland, told Reuters Health. ``After the intensive care and
attention they receive in hospital during the dying process, bereaved
families are very vulnerable once they leave the neonatal unit.''
McHaffie and
colleagues interviewed 59 sets of parents whose babies had died
in the hospital after being withdrawn from intensive care treatment,
at over a year after the baby's death. Parents were asked to discuss
their perceptions of follow-up care. The findings were published
in the March issue of the Archives of Diseases in Childhood.
Almost all
of the parents had attended at least one bereavement clinic appointment,
the researchers report. Although hospital policy dictated that
parents should be seen within 6 weeks of the infant's death, only
27 of the 118 individuals actually made an appointment. An additional
10 parents were seen within 2 months, and 11 more within 4 months.
The parents
reported four characteristics of the healthcare practitioners
with whom they met that made the visits meaningful: that person's
being able to share memories and experiences of the child, to
express compassion and understanding, to communicate effectively,
and to show a personal interest.
Parents also
said that it was important to them that they receive ``full and
frank information'' about what happened, reassurance about the
decision to withdraw treatment and about future pregnancy risks,
and concern for the whole family.
Although practice
guidelines in the United Kingdom mention follow-up care for bereaved
parents only briefly, ``to parents, this is a crucial part of
their management,'' McHaffie and colleagues state. And clinic
personnel need to be more proactive in providing this care, the
authors emphasize.
``We found
that, currently, very few families take up an open-ended invitation
to come back at any time after the first scheduled bereavement
clinic visit,'' the researchers write. Although one quarter of
the couples in the study said at their first interview that they
intended to return to the clinic for additional appointments,
only three actually did so.
``Vigilance
is needed to offer appropriate follow-up care,'' McHaffie told
Reuters Health. ``Staff who knew the baby are in a key position
to support them as they adjust to life after their loss.''
The researchers
note that the two purposes of follow-up visits should receive
equal attention: to provide the parents with ``full and frank
information'' about their infant's life and death, and to provide
parents with comfort by ``sharing memories of the child and events
in his/her life.''
SOURCE:
Archives of Diseases in Childhood 2001;84:F125-F128.
Reference
Source 89
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