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Helping Patients Cope with Their Decisions

  • Chapter
Prenatal and Preimplantation Diagnosis

Abstract

Learning of a fetal anomaly during pregnancy can be traumatic and poses difficult decisions and a burden of choice for parents. This chapter discusses the research literature on frequency and emotional sequelae of traumatic bereavement subsequent to these decisions. Ways in which medical caregivers can support patients after decisions have been made and evidence-based targeted psychotherapeutic interventions mental health professionals can offer to these parents, if needed, are presented.

Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break. William Shakespeare, Macbeth

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The terms patient, client, and parent are used interchangeably in this chapter to refer to pregnant individuals (or their partner) facing a decision to continue or terminate a pregnancy with a fetal anomaly.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. 30 E. 60th Street, Suite 802, New York, NY, 10022, USA

    Joann Paley Galst Ph.D.

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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. New York, New York, USA

    Joann Paley Galst

  2. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology; Department of Human Genetics, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Marion S. Verp

Appendix: Sample of Resources

Appendix: Sample of Resources

General Information on Fetal Diagnoses: www.poorprenataldiagnosis.com

FOR A TOPFA:

Brooks, C, editor. Our heartbreaking choices: forty-six women share their stories of interrupting a much-wanted pregnancy. NY: iUniverse; 2008.

Kushner, H. When bad things happen to good people. NY: Random House; 1981.

Minnick, MA, Delp, KC, Ciotti, MC. A time to decide, a time to heal: for parents making difficult decisions about babies they love. 4th ed. St. Johns, MN: Pineapple Press; 2000.

Online:

A Heartbreaking Choice

 www.aheartbreakingchoice.com

 www.aheartbreakingchoice.net

Baby Center open group:

 http://community.babycenter.com/groups/a6325/termination_for_medical_reasons

Ending a Wanted Pregnancy:

 http://endingawantedpregnancy.com

Stories for women who terminated wanted pregnancies in the second or third trimester:

 www.1in10blog.wordpress.com

FOR SELECTIVE REDUCTION:

Fertile Thoughts: http://www.fertilethoughts.com/forums/selective-reduction-and-termination-due-to-health-issues/

FOR CARRYING TO TERM:

Be Not Afraid: www.benotafraid.net

Anencephaly: www.anencephalie-info.org

Down Syndrome Support: www.ndsccenter.org, www.ndss.org

www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content4/babies.down.pn.html

Heart Defects: www.littlehearts.net, www.congenitalheartdefects.com

Information on Local Perinatal Hospice and Palliative Care:

http://perinatalhospice.org/Resources_for_parents.html

Spina Bifida: www.sbaa.org, www.waisman.wisc.edu/~rowley/sb-kids/

Support groups and information on specific genetic and rare conditions:

www.kumc.edu/gec/support, www.rarediseases.org www.geneticalliance.org

Tay-Sachs and other fatal degenerative genetic disorders: www.ntsad.org

The Solace Foundation: www.thesolacefoundation.org/carrying-to-term.html

Trisomy 18 Support: www.trisomy18support.org

Trisomy 18, 13 and Related Disorders: www.trisomy.org

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Galst, J.P. (2015). Helping Patients Cope with Their Decisions. In: Paley Galst, J., Verp, M. (eds) Prenatal and Preimplantation Diagnosis. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18911-6_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18911-6_14

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