Abstract
This chapter is presented in two parts. Firstly, we will focus on the care of a baby after death, exploring the crucial role of the nurse. The second section explains the process of neonatal autopsy/postmortem, which is important knowledge for the nurse to possess. Since parents often ask questions or express their concerns to the nurse regarding autopsy/postmortem the nurse must be able to provide well-informed responses.
There are considerable variations in current practices relating to the physical care of a baby’s body after death, and despite evidence demonstrating the importance of continuing to care “for”, or to “be with” their baby after death (Davies, J Child Health Care 9(4):288–300, 2005; Forrester, Int J Palliat Nurs 14(12):578–585, 2008; Proulx et al., J Death Dying 73(4):309–325, 2016), the opportunities for families to do so are often limited (Whittle and Cutts 2005).
Together for Short Lives (2017) defines perinatal palliative care as being “an active and total approach to care…throughout the baby’s life, death and beyond… support for the family. It includes …care through death and bereavement”. This suggests it should be impossible for us as nurses to consider the care we provide for the baby and family ending at the point a baby dies. We need to understand and learn to value our role in providing care after death for the baby, and supporting the parents and other family members after the baby has died. This is of immense significance as there is evidence suggesting the way we support and communicate with bereaved parents can either comfort or exacerbate their distress (Contro et al., Pediatrics 114(5):1248–1252, 2004).
However, there is a paucity of published evidence meaning that we are dependent on professional established practice or consensus of opinion, therefore we need to further understand the needs of families during the time between the baby’s death and their funeral, and consequently there is a wide variety of practices from an international perspective and even across the UK.
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Black, R., Kerr-Elliott, T., Judge-Kronis, L., Sebire, N. (2020). Care after Death: For the Baby and their Family, including Post Mortem Examination. In: Mancini, A., Price, J., Kerr-Elliott, T. (eds) Neonatal Palliative Care for Nurses. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31877-2_20
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