"You Can Only Give Warmth to Your Baby When It's Too Late" : Parents' Bonding With Their Extremely Preterm and Dying Child

Abraham, Andrea; Hendriks, Manya J. (2017). "You Can Only Give Warmth to Your Baby When It's Too Late" : Parents' Bonding With Their Extremely Preterm and Dying Child Qualitative Health Research, 27(14), pp. 2100-2115. SAGE 10.1177/1049732317721476

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This study on end-of-life decisions in extremely preterm babies shows that the parents under study experience a multitude of stressors due to the immediate separation after birth, the alienating setting of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), the physical distance to the child, medical uncertainties, and upcoming decisions. Even though they are considered to be parents (assigned parenthood), they cannot act as primary caregivers. Instead, they depend on professional instructions for access and care. Embodied parenthood can be experienced only at the end-of-life, that is, during the dying trajectory and after the child's death. Professionally supporting parents during this compressed process (from assigned and distant to embodied parenthood) contributes fundamentally to their perception of being a family and supports their mourning. This calls for the further establishment of palliative and bereavement care concepts in neonatology.

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	School of Social Work > Social Intervention focus area School of Social Work
Name:	Abraham, Andrea0000-0003-3116-465X and Hendriks, Manya J.
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
ISSN:	1049-7323
Publisher:	SAGE
Language:	English
Submitter:	Andrea Abraham
Date Deposited:	18 Nov 2020 15:57
Last Modified:	01 Dec 2022 21:46
Publisher DOI:	10.1177/1049732317721476
ARBOR DOI:	10.24451/arbor.13295
URI:	https://arbor.bfh.ch/id/eprint/13295