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Despite research which highlights parents'increased anxiety and risk of attachment issues with the pregnancy that follows a perinatal loss, there is often little understanding that bereaved families may need different care in their subsequent pregnancies. This book explores the lived experience of pregnancy and parenting after a perinatal loss. Meeting the Needs of Parents Pregnant and Parenting After Perinatal Loss develops a helpful framework, which integrates continuing bonds and attachment theories, to support prenatal parenting at each stage of pregnancy. Giving insight into how a parent's world view of a pregnancy may have changed following a loss, readers are provided with tools to assist parents on their journey. The book discusses each stage of a pregnancy, as well as labor and the postpartum period, before examining subjects such as multi-fetal pregnancies, reluctant terminations, use of support groups, and the experiences of fathers and other children in the family. The chapters include up-to-date research findings, vignettes from parents reflecting on their own experiences and recommendations for practice. Written for researchers, students and professionals from a range of health, social welfare and early years education backgrounds, this text outlines what we know about supporting bereaved families encountering the challenges of a subsequent pregnancy.

[This] is a story of love, hope, and healing. There are 18 chapters covering intimate aspects of a young life ending and how those who remain behind can grieve in such a way that they go on living. This book is a collection of clinical wisdom, theoretical knowledge and models of care that can continue to tell the story and change cultures of care. As a palliative care nurse I am honored to write this Foreword and to be included in these pages with the authors who are truly pioneers in perinatal and pediatric bereavement. --Betty Ferrell, PhD, RN, MA, FAAN, FPCN, CHPN From the Foreword This is a definitive, state-of-the-art resource on the vital pieces of perinatal and pediatric palliative care. Culling the most important new evidence-based research and findings from scholars and practitioners worldwide, it links theoretical knowledge and clinical practice to fill a gap in current information. The text is distinguished by its provision of different and even competing perspectives that address the complexities of the tragic human experience of perinatal, neonatal, and pediatric death and the nurses and other healthcare providers who provide care to those involved.Contributors disseminate new theoretical approaches and reexamine current concepts in light of new research. They discuss the theoretical underpinnings of perinatal and pediatric bereavement, examine current thought on the dimensions of loss, deliver evidence-based clinical interventions, and offer the perspective of grieving families regarding their experiences and needs. The book provides both novice and experienced scholars of perinatal and pediatric bereavement with a strong foundation of current knowledge. With clinical interventions derived from research, the book will enhance the expertise of clinicians caring for bereaved women and their families. It Includes case studies, interview excerpts, graphics and review questions to illustrate key points, and summaries demonstrating how theory is translated to clinical practice and informs research. Chapters provide objectives, references, and suggestions for additional study. The book is also a valuable study aid for students preparing for the Pediatric Loss Certification exam.Key Features: Provides high-level but accessible information from renowned scholars in perinatal and pediatric loss Disseminates the newest theoretical frameworks that can be used to create interventions and develop research Includes case studies demonstrating how theory is applicable to research and practice Facilitates critical thinking with different and even competing perspectives Serves as a valuable resource for Pediatric Loss Certification (NBCHPN) preparation

Congenital malformations are worldwide occurrences striking in every condition of society. These severe physical abnormalities which are present at birth and affecting every part of the body happen more often than usually realized, once in every 33 births. The most common, after heart defects, are those of the neural tube (the brain and spinal cord) which happen in as many as one in every 350 births. They have been noted as curiousities in man and beast throughout recorded history and received great attention in our time by various fields of study, for example, their faulty prenatal development by embryologists, familial patterns by geneticists, causation by environmentalists and variability by population scientists. Attention turned much in recent years to the relation of these malformations to deficiency of a particular dietary ingredient, folic acid, a subject this book analyzes in depth. The greatest conundrum of all, which this latest matter like so much else hinges on, is the amazing fact of the tremendous, almost universal decrease in the frequency of these anomalies since early in the 20th century. The puzzle is ‘What can this downward trend possibly mean?'and at bottom ‘Whether it is part of a long-term cyclical pattern'. This fascinating biological phenomenon is explored in the book together with various other topics.

Congenital malformations are worldwide occurrences, they know no national borders, do not distinguish between races, ethnicities, rich or poor. These severe physical abnormalities, present at birth, happen more often than is usually realized, once in every 33 births. They strike every part of the body, limbs, head, heart, and all others. The most frequent of them all are the many types of malformations of the cardiovascular system, the heart and its blood vessels, which happen in about once in every 250 births. Study of these conditions during the twentieth century took many forms, revolving about examination and analysis of their causes, genetic, nongenetic, and complex. To aid in unraveling the complexities of this causation, various influences on their frequency are considered, among them social conditions, maternal health, birthweight, newborn maturity. And of course the known and possible environmental bases of their occurrence are fully described.The relation of infant death to cardiovascular malformation is noted; and puzzlement that the level of such deaths had not kept pace with the reduction of infant death itself and of that associated with other kinds of malformations during this period. An introductory record of the history of perinatal mortality in the last three centuries gives foundation for the discussion of death in contemporary decades.