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. 2007 Jan;92(1):F56-8.
doi: 10.1136/adc.2005.092122. Epub 2006 May 16.

Palliative care for prenatally diagnosed lethal fetal abnormality

A C G Breeze  1 , C C Lees, A Kumar, H H Missfelder-Lobos, E M Murdoch
Affiliations

Palliative care for prenatally diagnosed lethal fetal abnormality

A C G Breeze et al. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed. 2007 Jan.

Abstract

Diagnosis of lethal fetal abnormality raises challenging decisions for parents and clinicians. Most parents opt for termination, which may include feticide. Advances in imaging seem unlikely to lead to earlier diagnoses. Perinatal palliative care offers an alternative. Parental decision making and the clinical aspects of perinatal palliative care were studied after a prenatal diagnosis of lethal fetal abnormality in 20 pregnancies. 40% of parents chose to continue the pregnancy and pursue perinatal palliative care. Six of these eight babies were liveborn and lived for between 1(1/2) h and 3 weeks.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None.

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