Palliative care for extremely premature infants and their families

Abstract

Extremely premature infants face multiple acute and chronic life-threatening conditions. In addition, the treatments to ameliorate or cure these conditions often entail pain and discomfort. Integrating palliative care from the moment that extremely premature labor is diagnosed offers families and clinicians support through the process of defining goals of care and making decisions about life support. For both the extremely premature infant who dies soon after birth and the extremely premature infant who experiences multiple complications over weeks and months in the neonatal intensive care unit, palliative care can maintain a focus on infant comfort and family support. This article highlights the ways in which palliative care can be incorporated into intensive care for all critically ill infants. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Disabil Res Rev 2010;16:296–301.