From the Grand Rapids [MI] Press:

The Perinatal Care Program provided by Hospice of Michigan offers comfort and guidance to families coping with a prenatal diagnosis of a life-limiting condition. (At left, Jody Kyser and her daughter Chloe, who had Trisomy 18).

The program is one of only four in the state that offers support to such parents and helps them deal with the uncertainty of the diagnosis – answering questions like how to give the news to the other children, how to deal with questions about the pregnancy, how much medical intervention to seek, and how to plan a funeral.

“It’s really nice to be able to offer families something more,” said Trudy McKanna, a genetics counselor. “You feel like you give them perhaps the worst news of their life, and you want to be able to help them. If there’s nothing you can do to help the baby medically, you at least want to be able to take care of their emotional needs and their family needs.”

(Photo from Grand Rapids Press)

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 4:38 pm and is filed under families, genetics, NOT2BEMISSED, prenatal diagnosis, trisomy 18. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.